(Y6, December 16th)

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Vantegaard was convinced the appearance of the new ritual was a coincidence. He might put too much confidence in the informational power of his Skill, but he was sure that, if it was a locational interference, it should have popped given that it was located over a leyline, the same way Birka’s druidic Skills had shown up in the two groves they’d visited.

He would have to investigate further. He didn’t know each and every Skill there was. The only references he remembered about rituals in Tarquar were that of a few ritualists swapping stories about trying the lottery, as such a configuration was obviously “ritual-friendly”, but it was not conclusive. One had complained about a useless crafting Skill, and the other had not mentioned what he had. So, one in three was not proof of something.

He realized a lot of the locational interference sites would be like that. For every Stonehammer Fortress or Glacier dungeon or druidic grove where it was almost obvious that something was going on once you knew about locational interference, there might be dozens of ambiguous ones where only dedicated testing would work to separate fact from fiction.

That would have to wait. Most of his data work was done Earthside anyway, as nothing could equate to the flexibility of the Internet and private search engines. The Com globes, like the one Quandocor used daily to check in with the Earthen Keep, were more like a 19th-century telegraph than a modern communication method.

All of them gathered to the far side of the Tarquar stones, outside of the crowd, before Quandocor tried his first “trance”. Like all rituals, the description made it dramatic, while the actual execution was pretty mundane. Quandocor simply let the casting timer run, ensuring he was not doing anything else, even checking the Interface. And the +14 Intuition popped in place.

The stat was one in which the three had very few skills, but it was also the one in which their most character-defining one was. Sense the Leylines, Absolute Compass, and Lay of the Land; all three were based on Intuition. And so, while the change was not as pronounced in Birkathane’s case, as it affected her perception of direction indoors and only at tier 4, the other Skills’ ranges increased by almost 50%.

“Whoa,” they both said in unison.

“You first,” Quandocor said.

“I’m high enough to detect again the world leyline knot back at the keep now. And one additional minor leyline further north of here.”

“Don’t get too used to it. Ten days top, and you’ll have to do without. And that’s if Berkleyyan doesn’t call me back before.”

“Well, it is three times a day till then. I may squeeze a tiny percentage of XP yet. That skill is really hard to raise since I only get experience for each leyline once. You?”

“Well, I do get two new dungeons in range. And one with another item in it. Shall we?”

Both Birka and Van blinked in surprise.

They left the stones behind. They’d thought they’d do a little bit of tourism to see what else they could find, as people had built businesses already around the stone with plans for eventually a real village. Then, they’d head out to grind more roaming beasts the next day. Those plans were now forgotten. The presence of an item in what Vantegaard’s printed list assured them was a known dungeon was far more interesting. The dungeon was at the edge of Quandocor’s boosted range, so it would take them over a day and a half to get there. If some random adventurers got there first, they might lose the item. And Quandocor’s range and perception would only be available three times a day, four at best.

They couldn’t know what was there, but it was likely to be significant given that the dungeon was listed at around rank 40. Items had all kinds of levels and rarely matched the rank of their local enemies, but at 40, they could be anything between 20 and 45. Quandocor’s boosted perception capped at 46, making it the upper limit. Raising the Perception to where the item became useable might be extremely costly, but dungeon items like the staff they’d just found tended to be far better than crafted ones. Finding another one was a stroke of luck, made only possible by having a literal detector with them.

On the second day, Quandocor’s map prompts started to fill up with the dungeon information even outside of the temporary boost. But without the increase in Intuition, he couldn’t track the item or the weaker monsters. Both were just over his normal skill limit.

“So, the lower range is higher.”

“Starts over 35,” Quandocor confirmed.

“All the more interesting. Your staff was good, but this is a big ticket item.”

They kept pushing until they came close to their destination.

“Better to camp now,” Birkathane noted with her usual pragmatism.

“2 kilometers still. But yes. Unlike you two, I see shit at night, so I’d rather not start exploring a dungeon at this hour.”

“The Cartographer guides say it’s a mid-sized one, but also outdoor. Two-story tall mini-keep. With… a recurring spider infestation.”

“Giant ones, I presume,” Quandocor asked with a pout.

“Atrax Caldarius. Ambush spiders that have cold powers.”

“Well, it could be worse. Venomous Australian spiders, but giant-sized. But yes, definitively not at night. Next full dungeon check in half an hour, so let’s camp at a safe distance.”

“Presences,” Quandocor warned as they approached the dungeon’s location in the morning.

By convention between the three, “critters” would be notifying of some Northworld fauna – or sometimes, but rarely, animated flora – prowling around. “Presence” was another Gater. From afar, anyone too high a level wouldn’t register on Lay of the Land, but at close range, Sense Life and Death worked across all levels, even if the precision wasn’t there.

When they stepped out of the copse of woods surrounding the mini-keep that was their target, they found two people stashing backpacks and preparing to dive into the dungeon keep. Both wore a loose leather version of a kilt with woolen leggings underneath, but of different cuts. One had a thick, padded leather jacket with reinforcing studs, while the other had a sleeveless version with an additional wool jacket. The armored guy had a large axe with a nasty back hook, and his companion sported a pair of maces. The two men looked surprised at the trio’s appearance, and one laughed.

“Well, just in time.”

“We were going to sweep the privy castle. Want to join?”

“You’re familiar with it?” Vantegaard asked.

“We come around every three weeks. It’s usually the right time for the next generation of spiders to pop out. Any faster, and you’ll find only smaller specimens and not too many.”

“Do you know where they come from?” Quandocor asked, always curious about the bizarre mechanics of Northworld.

“There’s a small hillock half a kilometer away. You have holes, not enough to go in, but enough for newborn spiders to come out. They tend to grow a lot after that. Then they disappear a few weeks later, you usually find desiccated corpses around, and the next generation emerges. If you ever wanted to convert this into a livable building, you’d probably have to find a way to clean that nest first.”

The three looked at each other.

“Interested? How high are you?” the axeman.

“You’re veteran levels, right?” Quandocor asked back.

Unlike his necromancer friend, all Vantegaard had to work with was Aether levels, which essentially counted how high your current magical skills were, rather than your level, which was how high all your skills had improved, plus a tiny extra that came from fighting rather than grinding. The last factor, “free XP”, was mostly ignored. Even with all their constant fighting over six months, it was the equivalent of less than three Skill increases for him.

Both were probably of the same level range, but the axe wielder had a decent 200, while the mace user was over 450, which would fit a good level 500 pure mage or a medium caster at level 750. Vasilikulik had been 800-ish with a mixed build and had similar levels.

“Right. It was right at the edge of the difficulty when we started around level 400 with no real healing, but we’ve been doing it for five months now. After level 500, we started getting to the privy room if we didn’t exhaust ourselves. It helps the spiders come in by one or two at most.”

“Although there is that spot when we get three. Or four.”

“It’s not been a problem last run, even with four. They don’t attack with any group tactic.”

“But there’s plenty to stretch those Skills. Unless you’re thousanders? If so, you’ll probably be disappointed by this one.”

The three exchanged looks. Truth to be said, there were few options. The three might have a fairly good chance at doing the keep, with their inflated Skill counts, replenishing Meditations, and a true healer in the form of Birkathane. But the two Gaters had the experience and would run it anyway. Competing for the same dungeon was bad Northworld etiquette, not that it would stop some people.

“Sure. We’ll do it.”

“Great. Grancircus, level 530 Resilience axe frontline with a dab of arcane things.”

“Illbatar, level 550 Fortitude psionic necromancer. I double as frontline because necromancy.”

“Draining health to top up?” Quandocor asked immediately.

“Got that, too. I also have a psi Skill that lets me drain the energies of the spiders, and they do have small death energy stores, so I have way more necromantic reserves than just robbing the corpses. You?”

“Quandocor, Fortitude staff archmage, necromancy, rituals, and wizardry.”

The first man, Grancircus, whistled.

“Birkathane, Presence frontline monk build with druidic, geomancy, and arcane.”

“Vantegaard, swords with Reasoning geomancy, aetheric and psionics.”

“Reasoning with swords? How does that work… Wait, all three of you are archmages? Two-plus into each magic vitals?” Illbatar exclaimed.

“We may have had an extremely lucky start.”

“What levels?” Grancircus raised his hand.

“Around… well, going to 300.”

“And you’re trying the privy castle? At 300?” Illbatar exclaimed.

“We started at 400, remember. True, we couldn’t get in deep… but there are three of them, a druid probably healing, and archmages. It should be doable if you pace yourself over one or two days. If you like risks.”

The trio threw up their hands in mock dismay.

“We probably wouldn’t have come,” Vantegaard acknowledged.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

He had not mentioned yet the item they had been expecting. It was a possibility. Stay quiet, hope they did not find it, and risk some acrimonious or even violent dispute if – when – they found out about it.

Cooperation or conflict. Although they were unlikely to meet again afterward, it was a Prisoner’s Dilemma setup. Worst case… they were there for the levels, not the loot.

“But Quan here has a Skill to track opportunities. He detected a high-level item in the dungeon, so we came to check.”

“And a scan Skill. Next thing, she has meditations to keep topped up and doesn’t need to run out of the keep and surround herself with trees to regenerate.”

The three exchanged looks again.

“No way? Are you fucking with us? Because if you’re bullshitting and are just here to be carried…”

“As I said, we had a very, very lucky start. Let us show.”

Birkathane’s skin rippled with bark as she breathed the icy fog she’d recently acquired and practiced. Vantegaard threw a buff and fired a rock dart in the trees, but he clinched it when he walked up to the keep’s wall and pushed Mind Over Matter. He let the hole in the wall lapse almost immediately, not wanting to drain all of his psi, even with regeneration. Quandocor merely shrugged.

“I’d keep this for later, but with two more people, it’s not too bad if it lapses.”

The Dawn of Light

Tier 1 Presence

Ritual

The early hours are always the most inspiring.

Grant every friendly entity a +% skill buff.

Duration: 88 min

Area: 88m radius

Buff: +4.4% to all skills

Cooldown: 11 hours, 34 min

Cast time: 39 sec

Cost: 75 Ritual, +134 for hours after last sunrise.

Skill level 44 (base 12)

Advancement: 9%

“Okay, I walk back everything I said,” Grancircus said.

“Who did you fuck to get all that at 300?”

“I don’t think it can be duplicated,” Vantegaard said, explaining some – not all – of the circumstances.

“Some people get all the luck,” Illbatar lamented.

“Although we could get rich and buy all those Skill Stones too. I wish I could sink a quarter of a million into free Skills. You said a high-level item?”

“Between levels 35 and 46. That’s all I can determine.”

“Never found one?” Vantegaard asked.

“The castle had been looted long before we started running it for the spiders. The eyes are a surprising delicacy – if you have the right spices – but their fangs sell. Or rather, what you make from them does. There’s an alchemist in our tiny little group that uses those for… stamina… boosting on Earth.”

Birkathane smothered a laugh.

“Don’t need those for him,” she said, smacking Vantegaard on the shoulder and eliciting a groan.

“But I do some alchemy. Got tincture and basic potions. Do you have a recipe?”

“All I know is that it’s a level 20 one. Easy, if you have the right components.”

“Gah. Got only 12 in Potions. I’m not a dedicated brewer, just a dabbler. We… invested mostly in combat.”

“So. How do we do this?”

“Castle or item?”

“Loot, obviously. Rock-scissor-papers devolve into who has the highest Reflexes. Got any dice? Nope? Equip, then?”

Vantegaard raised an eyebrow.

“Equip means, if it’s a weapon, then it goes to the one who uses that type – or if you’re an unarmed build, like monk, gloves. Otherwise, it’s for whoever has the lowest-level item in the slot. And then you break ties by dual-toss coin flips. One person throws the coin, the other catches it, and you do the same in reverse until you both get tails or heads, whichever you pick. Reduces the importance of Reflexes.”

“Didn’t know that principle. Sounds good. Can any of you identify a level 46…?”

“I probably have the highest Perception, but that’s only 37. If it’s higher, even if I dump all my remaining points, it won’t be enough. So, it’s sight unseen, and we’ll have to get a high level to examine it later,” Grancircus said.

“Dawn is ticking,” Quandocor reminded them.

“Well, there are a few rooms with little…”

“Wait, I will assume the item will be deep into the dungeon. Because that’s where you find those new ones.”

“Probably the privy room. Because it’s the deepest…”

“I can probably get us in fast. Depending on the walls’ thickness.”

The two men blinked.

“Wait, that hole in the wall?”

“Drains a lot of psi, but I can regenerate it faster by meditating. So, I can create a door through a wall if it’s not too thick, and we can cross it fast. I mean, I have a guide, but not much…”

“A guide? Wait, you have that Cartographer guide?”

The two looked at each other and laughed.

“Okay, last month, I noticed it and bought it to see what it said. Worst purchase ever. Whoever wrote it should be tarred and feathered. It misses 70% of the whole keep, and what it says is wrong. Except for the mobs in there. That’s the right kind and abilities, at least.”

Vantegaard made a face.

“That’s what you get with these guys. They get everyone’s worst writings for cheap and resell them. You never know what you’ll get.”

“They do make good maps. That, at least, I’ll grant.”

“You know, you could offer them an updated version?” Vantegaard finally said.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. If it’s better than the one currently available, why not?”

“You’ll sell that access later,” Quandocor reminded them again that his buff’s clock was ticking.

“Right. I need a meditation or two to regain full psi, so wall walking once every ten minutes or so. What do you suggest?” Vantegaard focused back.

“We usually skip the central square. There’s only one door to get in there, and it’s not too far from the end of the right side track. You get to the main room of the keep either left or right from the entrance. The entrance may have a spider, but the wall to the inner courtyard is just there at the back. So we can skip like two-thirds of the right half if you can get all of us in.”

“I can. Show me.”

“No spider,” Grancircus announced as they filed through the vaulted entrance.

Inside, iron door fitting still hanging off hinges showed where a door had once been, but of the door itself, there was no trace. The first room was relatively clean, and rubble was stacked on the side of the room. The ceiling was heavy beams of some almost-black wood, with a paler wood ceiling.

“Yeah, we clean up a little the keep every time we sweep it. Who knows, maybe our group will decide to move in one day. After clearing the hill of spider spawns, that is.”

“So, the wall there goes straight into the keep courtyard.”

“That’s right.”

“How thick?”

“About… two-thirds of a meter? All the walls in there are the same.”

“So here’s how it is done. I’ll open a 2-by-1 meters opening. Depending on the depth, I can sustain that from 20 to 30 seconds these days. That’s plenty of time, but I’d rather conserve my psi to regain it all after a single meditation. So I call it out, the gate opens, all of you go through as quickly as possible, and I get in and let it collapse.”

“That’s cheating.”

“For that kind of place, it is. But you rarely have such buildings as a dungeon. Now get ready.”

“Always.”

“Go for it.”

The chuckle from Quandocor and Birkathane echoed. Vantegaard focused on the wall, putting a hand on it as a practical way of concentrating.

“Three… two… one. GO!”

Light poured into the room, and Birka ran through. The two adventurers who’d hesitated slightly followed immediately, with Quandocor running in. Vantegaard immediately moved through the 80cm of the vanished wall, letting the psionic Skill lapse as soon as he’d reached inside.

“What happens if you let it close upon someone.”

“No one has ever done it that I know. And I’m trying not to be the one who tests that. Now, let me get…”

Grancircus pointed upward. Vantegaard followed the direction and spotted a bulbous silhouette atop the inner walls of the keep.

“A wandering guard. There’s often a few on the parapets. You’d think spiders would dislike the open air and sunlight, but no.”

“Not attacking?”

“Unless you come close, they tend to leave you alone. But…”

He pointed to a door.

“Door’s there, and there’s the stairs not too far. It will probably get in when we go there.”

“Then I’ll wait for the fight. Quan?”

“39? More or less. Want me to irritate it?”

Vantegaard looked at Grancircus.

“If you have the reach,” the man said. “Otherwise, I’ll do it.”

The spider shape suddenly shivered. Vantegaard expected it to run down the wall, spider-style, but instead, it surprised them by jumping. However, Grancircus and Illbatar weren’t and immediately positioned themselves, already moving in as the bulbous shape landed, flexing on the eight spider legs.

From up close, the arthropod was a distorted version and gigantized of an Earth spider. More squat, with six black eyes clearly visible across a very thick skin that lacked the fur-like cover of normal spiders. The mouth, however, was a thing from hell. It had four pincer-like jaws, but he could see into the mouth opening a cavity full of teeth seemingly strewn at random.

The critter had relatively little Aether, he noted. Grancircus was already swinging his axe, and Illbatar had the concentrated look of a caster busy. As for him, he was already applying all of his debuff suite, as Quan moved opposite Grancircus to whack the three-foot-tall spider with his own staff. Birka was making faces and carefully avoiding getting too close, sending rock darts instead.

With the two veterans, the fight went quickly; the lone spider pushed back by staff into the path of axe swings.

“It was cold,” Quandocor finally remarked as it expired.

“Cold aura. Be happy it didn’t breathe cold in your face.”

“I can do that. I suppose it is wasted on it,” Birkathane said.

“Our guild geomancer got that Skill, too. Icebreath, right? He came once and didn’t come again. Spiders, you know.”

“They’re disgusting. I didn’t think I’d ever say that, but I prefer rats,” she replied.

“A minute and a half of meditation to get back to full, and we can move,” Vantegaard called. “Where to next?”

“Door into the keep. There’s a room next to it with stairs to the upper floor, and then it’s a room and a corridor, and you’re in the main room. You can do your trick again?”

Vantegaard contemplated his fast-rising psi.

“I’ll be full.”

“The only risk is if there is a spider next to the wall. Might make for a messy part.”

“We’ll see. I need to practice the Skill anyway.”

There was a lone spider atop the stairs, and in the close quarters, the cold exuded by the arachnid was far more marked.

“It helps to have heals. I mean, I got a passive health regen Skill, Boundless Vitality, but it’s not even doubling the health regen yet. Nothing to compare to real healing, miss,” Grancircus said.

“We aim to please,” she laughed. “You haven’t got a healer in your group?”

“One, but he’s always busy.”

“And he’s a bit higher level than us, too,” Illbatar added.

“Okay, that’s the wall next to the last room?” Vantegaard asked.

“It is. And if the item isn’t there…”

“Then it’s time to sweep every room in the keep. Get ready. Three… two… one…”

The opening in the wall made a very surprised spider fall and turn toward them. Vantegaard instantly let the Skill go, slamming the wall shut on the spider.

“Okay, messy it is.”

“I can try to close the wall on the spider,” Vantegaard said.

“I’d rather keep the spider parts intact,” Grancircus countered.

“Then the long way round.”

When the group erupted into the last room, they found three spiders waiting. One – presumably the one they’d disturbed – was trying to scratch the wall in a relatively dumb attempt to get back to them.

Grancircus moved to the one crawling in the center of the room, Quandocor turned toward the scratching one, and Vantegaard picked the last one by default. Birkathane made another face before joining him on that one, as Illbatar started to use his magics. By default, Quandocor had let him drain all the corpses, as he could rely on Unseen Meditation to recover instead.

Grancircus’s spider was one with a cold breath, but the man was wrapped in thick, reinforced armored clothing, so outside of a small shiver, it was not too dangerous. Vantegaard and Birkathane dealt with their spider as fast as possible before lending a hand to Quandocor, whose spider was jumping back and forth between wall and ground, making him twitch reflexively to whack it during its jumps.

Meanwhile, the veteran melee finished his own easily, but he didn’t have time to come to help on Quandocor’s before the last spider fell to his drains.

“And done. You three always go the full way?”

“Meditation. One fight every five minutes means we don’t need to worry about long term.”

“Cheating. Why couldn’t I have spawned in that Fanduk place,” Illbatar grumbled.

“Nobody spawned there until we did, actually. We were among the first ones in the area.”

“So I spawned too early for the rush. It’s my luck,” he said, but the tug of a smile on his lips made the grumble a lie.

Now that the fight was over, Vantegaard took stock of the final room. It was fairly large, with two entrances from the two sides of the mini-keep. Openings let in the sun, and at the side, there was a small raised area with a large stone chair… and a large circular hole in the middle. Now, he realized why the two veterans were calling it the privy castle because it sure looked like the chair was exactly for that purpose.

At the side of the raised dais, there was something in a gray color that jumped up against the floorwood.

Spider Grip Glove (lvl ?), weaved from short spider silk strands.

“Well, there it is. Congrats, miss Birkathane,” Grancircus said, making a face.

“Based on Aether level, it is 44,” Vantegaard announced, and both veterans whistled.

“You might not go back empty-handed, though,” Quandocor said.

The rest turned to look at him. He was peering down to the “privy” hole in the split stone throne.

“There’s something lodged in there, too,” he announced.

“You didn’t detect more than one item. Is it that high an item?” Vantegaard said.

“You tell me,” he replied, half-laughing.

Vantegaard needed to see the item to get to the aether levels, which would give him a good indication of its level. However, when he peered down, he realized why Quandocor hadn’t detected anything.

It was hard to see in the semi-darkness of the hole, as the room they were in prevented Night Sight from acting, but it looked like a hand-sized marble slab with rounded borders. Vantegaard knelt and inserted his arm into the hole, reaching for the item as he grimaced.

“I hope this was never really used as…”

“Don’t think it ever was,” Grancircus replied. “It’s just that it looks like one with that hole punched through the seat. You can see the room from the lower room, although not even spiders can go through.”

“Got it,” he said.

As he’d half-expected, recognizing the shape, a descriptor popped up, prompting him for a skill.

Good Instincts

Tier 4 Intuition. Recipes are an option.

Cost: 0

Acquire skill

“Is that?” Grancircus asked once Vantegaard pulled it, showing off the marble with its metallic stripes.

“Yes. It is a genuine Skill Stone. No wonder it wasn’t detectable by Quan or even me close-up. These things, like Silvergates, don’t have a whiff of aether or a direct descriptor. Well, they have one, but for the Skill itself, not the stone. This one is Good Instincts, a tier 4 intuition.”

“Don’t recognize the Skill.”

“I don’t have my skill reference guide here. The quote makes me think it is a crafting or crafting-oriented skill. Probably not the top end for a tier 4, but easily worth one or two silver pieces-of-8, at least.”

Vantegaard looked at the gloves Birkathane held.

“Depending on what these have, it might even fetch a slightly better price than the spider silk.”

“Well, how do we…?”

“We got gloves; you two get the Stone, I guess? That way, everyone won.”

“Unless you want to swap?” Grancircus said.

“Birka?”

“We’ll roll the dice. Maybe it’s a basic item with a boost to my worst stats. Who knows. I mean, I’ve got scaling gloves, but not that strong.”

“Then… deal,” the man said, holding his hand.

Vantegaard shook it and then dropped the Skill Stone in it.

“Your alchemist friend might even like it,” Birkathane added.

“If he does, he’ll have to provide us with the potions we want, when we want, for a decade!” Illbatar said.