SANCTUARY SQUARE, NON-PVP ZONE. LOCATION CLASSIFIED.
CLOSEST KNOWN CLAIMED TERRITORY: PLANET EARTH UNCLAIMED (BLOCKED BY TIMER)
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“Oh my actual god this is so fucking cool!” Jon groaned. “Why can’t I go there?! I have a name, I can put on a mask damnit.”
“Sorry Codex, the sub-space portals used to teleport to Sanctuary Square require the full Augmentation process to pass through. It’s a safety precaution to keep non-Augments from entering the area and by all technicalities, you are still included in that group,” Angie explained.
I was walking down the stairs into the courtyard, trying to look around slowly to let Jon see as much as possible. I could hear him making random comments about the various things in the square as I came to the bottom of the staircase and turned toward the nearest display board. I hadn’t actually taken the time to look at the leaderboard again and while both my achievement and Jon had confirmed that I was on it, I still really wanted to see it for myself.
Tenth Wave
Guardians: 403 Miscreants: 529
1. Tempest’s Wrath - Level 10 Thunder God - Miscreant - 9270 Points
2. Freakenstein - Level 7 Patchwork Armorer - Miscreant - 7010 Points
3. Duke Juke’em- Level 6 Highschool Athlete - Miscreant - 6945 Points
4. Swansong - Level 6 Healing Voice - Guardian- 6690 Points
5. Loophole - Level 6 Perfect Planner - Guardian - 6680 Points
6. Pretty Pink Warthog - Level 6 Berserking Boar - Guardian - 6150 Points
7. Quizmaster - Level 6 Gameshow Host - Miscreant - 6055 Points
8. Sound Off - Level 6 Midnight DJ - Miscreant - 5925 Points
9. Pigeon - Level 6 Pigeon - Miscreant - 5900 Points
10. Heavy Ink - Level 6 Comic Book Artist - Guardian - 5885 Points
I stared at the list for a minute, feeling just a bit of pride in the fact that I had risen so quickly, even sitting as technically the second highest Guardian on the list. Tempest’s continued rise was impressive, but she had noticeably slowed her rabid pace down. Whether that was because she had actually finally been met with resistance or if she had just decided to take a nap after a 24 hour rampage really was the bigger question.
I turned away and headed deeper into the courtyard, turning my attention to the large statues that represented the best of both sides.
“Duuuuuude!” Jon groaned again.
“Sheesh keep it in your pants man,” I laughed as I lingered on the statues of the Guardians.
“The First, Calypso, Brightburst, Mandragos and…. Huh… who’s that last guy?” Jon said, listing them off one by one without the need for me to even highlight them. He apparently didn’t even need me to highlight anything either, as he was able to do it separately from his end without it affecting my own display. But even with that ability, I could tell just by his cadence that wasn’t what he had just done. “Who the hell is TechWarden?”
“You really think that I’d know the answer if you didn’t?”
“Fair point, Angie?”
“I do not have data on earlier waves currently available to me, remember, other than a direct line to Axio for clarification of specifics, you have more or less the same data access as I do,” she explained.
“Sure, but I still have a human speed brain, you can access it instantaneously if you do have access to it. But oh well, guess I’ll just have to do some research on him later then,” Jon said and I could hear an obvious level of excitement in his tone. “Okay what about the Miscreants? Who are their top dogs?”
I looked over to the opposite side of the courtyard and waited.
“Jumpstart, Frightmare, Twin Revolver, Thirst Trap, and Firefist. Pretty much who you’d expect just going on the worst of the worst. I’m surprised it leaves them up like that if they are dead though, Jumpstart has been dead for at least five years now,” Jon mused. I took a closer look at the last of the statues for the first time and realized that sure enough, it was a perfect likeness of the man The First had been fighting carved into an almost magma-like red and black marble.
“The statues represent the highest scores achieved and exist mostly like a record. Even if the person dies or, for some reason, gives up all of their territory claims, they would still have had the record up until that point. The only thing that would update is how their name and stats are listed when you pull up their description box,” Angie said.
“That makes sense,” Jon said. “Do you want to check out the bookstore first so that I can get a catalog of what they have? Or were you really determined to check out the second floor of the bar?”
While I certainly could have gone back out into town and tried to close down another den or two, I had been going since I had gotten up and the idea of taking an hour or two to just collect my thoughts was more than appealing. I had the BOGO coupon for the bookstore and Jon really liked the idea of exploring the shop. If I got lucky I could be adding some new techniques to my skill set by the time Axio was making his daily announcement.
With the Training Dojo in place, Jon pointed out that I could theoretically spend another hour or two in there just making abilities and testing their effectiveness. But all of that was predicated on finding a few new books that I could work into my powerset. Between the NPCs I had looted, the various missions and dens I had tackled, not to mention the loot boxes, I was sitting on just over 12,000 credits. Assuming the books didn’t drain my entire wallet, we had also agreed it would be a good idea to check the ViewFinder for a potential interface upgrade.
If, and really only if, I had some credits left over after that would I check out the Guardian resale shop. Angie was relatively sure that I probably wouldn’t find anything useful for my level there though, which was why the interface upgrade really took priority.
According to Angie, after some probing from Jon, my hotbar would naturally extend the higher level I got, with the expansions coming on randomized odd levels. While I might not be able to cheat the system and gain more available spots on my hotbar ahead of time, I could purchase a Hotbar Revolver. The revolver was a relatively simple interface upgrade, offering the ability to have multiple hotbar loadouts, with the total available bars dependent on the size that you purchased. Sure, I couldn’t swap them in the middle of an encounter, but with enough abilities, I could have different loadouts for different situations.
“Let’s take care of the shopping and stuff first,” I said after I took a bit of time to consider it. “I’m gonna want to take a little bit of time in The Common Ground so I want to have everything else done so that you’re not sitting around bored.”
“And I gotta say I appreciate that,” Jon laughed as I turned my attention back toward the Guardian side of the Square. “Wait, go back to the Guardian statues really quick,” he said hurriedly and I obliged. “Hmmm… did you notice that all of the top Guardians are listed as Unknown?”
I had already known The First’s status had changed, so I focused on the second statue in the line and let the description pull up.
“Calypso. Level 193 Drowned Siren. Territories: 133* Status: Unk-... Alive. *Note: This Guardian no longer has claims to this many territories.”
“Wait, she just changed to Alive… that was weird,” Jon muttered. I had just started to look away from the statues when he gasped. “Dude it’s her!”
“Huh, where?” I asked, looking around. He had to have seen her somewhere within my field of view, so I didn’t have to move my head too far.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I did, as she would have stood out damn near anywhere and when that anywhere was just outside of an admittedly ordinary looking bar, it was all the more noticeable.
Her costume looked like flowing scales, with long stretches of aquamarine and purple patterned fabric going from the underside of her arms, all the way down along her legs and outward like a mermaid’s tail behind her. Her dark, ebony skin was a stark contrast to the opalescent aquamarine mask that covered the upper half of her face. Her silvery, dreadlocked hair was pulled back in a large bun that appeared to be tied and held with a fishing net of all things.
“She’s one of The First’s team members, right? Or she was at least?” I asked as the woman was immediately swarmed by at least a dozen other Augments. A bright smile split across her face as she shook hands, though oddly she never seemed to speak. Not necessarily wanting to join the gathering crowd of onlookers, I turned my attention back toward the Guardian’s shopping segment.
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“Yeah, The Paragons of Justice. Cheesy as hell name but the whole team had been working together since the early days. Calypso has always sort of been his second-in-command, and she’s powerful as hell in her own right. She uses songs to enchant people and manipulate water at some crazy strong levels,” Jon explained as if he was reading her stats off a baseball card. “Why did her status just change? Didn’t you mention there’s something weird about that place?”
“Yeah, it’s like a sorta null zone for A.I.s. I guess it also blanks out statuses when folks are in it too,” I said with a shrug, climbing up the stairs and past a few others wandering back down into the courtyard. They gave me friendly smiles but I didn’t stop to talk as I looked around for the Beacon of Knowledge bookstore.
“Oh yeah… will you still be like, around to talk with me when he goes in there Angie? Will I still be able to talk to him?” Jon asked and I could have sworn I heard a bag of chips in the background.
“Honestly? No clue! We’re gonna have to see when he gets over there cause this is literally a first,” Angie said.
The bookstore was nestled into one of the corners of the Guardian’s segment, looking as if it had been plucked out of the cheesiest fairy tale on the planet. I pushed through the large oak door and entered a room with more natural light than made sense for the amount of windows it had. The ceiling stretched high, with bookshelves towering up, reaching for the rafters at least two dozen feet above my head.
Sitting on a tall but comfortable looking chair behind the register was a petite older woman, a cardigan tied up around her neck and a small pair of spectacles sliding down her nose as she read from a thick magazine titled The Heroic Hotty Digest: XXXL Edition.
“Now that’s my kinda lady!” Angied whooped and I rolled my eyes as I highlighted her.
“Betty White. Owner of the Beacon of Knowledge. This is a non-sentient NPC. Named after one hell of an acting icon, Betty is a collector of all things books. Though her job does tend to have her focusing on the, ugh, intellectual pursuits, if you ask her nicely, I’m sure she’d give you access to the… um… restricted section. Come on… ask her nicely, I want to see what she’s hiding.”
“Feel free to look around dear, tomes are locked from use until you’ve purchased them so don’t try to be cute,” she said without looking up from her reading material.
“Ask her if it’s done in sections or if there’s a catalog or something?” Jon asked and I passed on the question.
“You can find a guide here at the end of the desk if you’re looking for something specific. My stock is filled largely with books other Guardians have collected and sold to me over time. With that said, I’m more than happy to purchase any tomes you acquire as they are very hard to come by. We do have a stock of rare items that are available on a rotating basis, and I’m afraid I don’t do layaways. If there’s a book you want, I suggest you purchase it. Oh, and no haggling with me dear, prices are as listed,” she said. She finally looked up from her book, looking over her glasses at me with a kind smile, “Now if you need anything, well, get it yourself, I can’t climb those damn ladders any more and my last three assistants all quit.”
“Thank you,” I said and moved down toward the end of the counter where a cheap looking school binder sat.
I opened it up and it revealed a few sheets of laminated pages. Though it was printed, the front page of the binder acted as a filtering system, complete with categories and tags.
“Oh this makes it much easier,” I said as I started clicking through the various filters. While I knew I would circle back to a few of the tags, I decided to first set a filter to hide any book that required an intelligence higher than 7. Once it was applied, it lowered the total available books from 200 all the way down to 20.
“Wait, set that to 11,” Jon said before I could turn the page to see the list of available books. “Sure, it might be a good idea to grab books that you could use right now and just get by, but it doesn’t hurt to check. That’s just two levels of dedicating half your stat points to Intelligence after all and if it lets you expand your ability set, it’s not necessarily a terrible idea.”
I didn’t argue and adjusted the filter. That raised the available listings up to 50 and that seemed as good a place to start as any. Turning the page revealed a tabled listing of the available books and with a quick click, the list rearranged itself in order based on value.
“Sheesh what the hell are some of these names? Explosions on a Budget: A DIY Guide to Chaos, Shifting Sands and Soaked Waves, Gravity Wells and Why They’re Dangerous?! Where the hell are we even supposed to start?” I muttered. The most expensive book on the list, Quantum Shenanigans for Beginners required an Intelligence of 10 but even I could guess just how useful having knowledge of Quantum Mechanics would be for my powerset. The problem was, it also happened to cost 5500 credits.
“These things might as well be college textbooks with how damn expensive they are,” Jon complained as I continued to look down the list.
“You never went to college,” I said, looking toward the cheaper books on the list.
“Yeah because the textbooks would have bankrupted my entire family,” he shot back. “Besides, Uncle Chris taught me everything I needed to know, I’m doing fine so far. Now, back to what matters here. There’s a lot of good stuff on this list and I think we can really take it a lot of ways, hell we could easily have you drain your wallet and buy 3 or 4 of theses books right off the bat but you wouldn't have the bar space to do anything with them. I think, for now at least, Gravity Wells and Why They’re Dangerous and Refractions of Reality are going to be your best bet. We’ll need to get you leveled up once for Refractions, but I think we could get you a movement skill with Gravity Wells, not to mention the potential for more battlefield control.”
“Yeah, that one I get, but Refractions of Reality? It’s just Optical Refraction Level 5. Are we sure it’s actually useful for me to have a higher knowledge than Level 3 instead of something that could give me more combat capabilities?” I asked as I eyed the two books. They both cost 1500 credits, so with the BOGO coupon they wouldn’t drain my wallet too hard. I knew we also wanted to check the Viewfinder for the Revolver, but even still, I couldn’t help but eye the Quantum Shenanigans book. It was one of the few books on the list that had the “Rotating” column of the listing marked and I felt an almost impulsive desire to grab it as well.
“It’s hard to say, as far as I can tell there hasn’t been another player with Local Area Manipulation in their powerset, though that's based on my own research more than any database. I’ve been doing some reading up here ever since you guys mentioned these books and your powerset seems to have a unique interaction with them,” Jon said.
“Oh? I was sorta wondering about that. Like, even to me it seemed weird that there would be an entire class of item solely designed to expand my powerset,” I said as I made note of a few other books on the list I could potentially come back for.
“Yeah, so other players can use them just to expand their knowledge within their own powerset, which would then in turn make their core abilities stronger. Let’s say an Earth Manipulator picked up Shifting Sands and Soaked Waves, he’d end up getting minor boosts to the damage his earth based abilities created thanks to the Erosion knowledge in the book, even if Tidal knowledge portion would be useless to him. On the other hand, you expand the types of core abilities you can make with each book you add,” he explained.
“Huh… I mean I guess that makes as much sense as anything. But what’s that have to do with me wasting the coupon on grabbing a book that will increase a knowledge stat I already have?”
“Cause we need to know if it does something sooner or later. The initial knowledge lets you create skills, maybe the higher level knowledge will also boost your various abilities’ power. I think if there was ever a time to gamble on it, it’s with a BOGO coupon,” Jon explained and seemed to take a moment before continuing, though that might have just been just to stop for a snack and I heard some crunching as he continued to talk. “Look, the rest of these books have their uses, don’t get me wrong I have at least two dozen ideas for An Atomic Guide to Thermodynamics, but those books also cost twice as much and I know we want to make sure you can still hit up the ViewFinder too. If we’re talking bang for your buck, we can start by immediately adding some gravity skills into your repertoire, then circle back and expand on that as we go. Your power is so insanely versatile, we need to start you with a solid foundation. So far, you’ve been focusing on area control skills, like the weight and sound controls, as well as manipulating what they see. Honestly, that’s not a terrible way to focus your skill at all. I think it’s better for you if you try to expand on that rather than suddenly switch directions and try to become an elemental mastermind or any of the other directions you could go. Yes, it’s a bit of redundancy, but there’s a whole lot you can do with power over gravity and I think we can take the evening to test that in the Training Dojo. That’s not saying those other skills couldn’t be useful to grab down the line, I just think we could easily fall into a pitfall of expanding too wide too quickly. And if having a higher knowledge skill does turn out to be pointless, well at least we know sooner rather than later, right?”
“For the record, I did say having a higher skill would be beneficial did I not?” Angie added once Jon finally stopped to take a breath.
“Yeah, but you also said you weren’t quite clear how it was beneficial, just that it was,” Jon pointed out. “Okay, pick those up and head over to the ViewFinder, you gotta have enough credits to get a Revolver.”
I was about to just listen to him and hunt down the two books when my eyes fell on the Quantum Shenanigans book again. I looked over to the shop's owner hopefully and figured it was better to ask the question now rather than get upset the "rotating" book... well... rotated.
“Mrs. White?”
“Just Betty dear,” the elderly lady responded with a smile as she closed her magazine and looked at me expectantly.
“How often do these rotating books… well… rotate?” I asked.
“Every Saturday we swap stocks with Whispers and Tomes to provide our respective customers access to the rare selections we provide. When one of the books from the stock is purchased, a new random one is added,” Betty explained.
“Um…. What day is it?”
“Dude really…”
“I got crushed by a dumpster a little over a week ago, cut me some slack.”
“You still need to let that go!” Angie groaned. “And by the way, it’s Friday, October 25th.”
“And when did this one enter the stock? Has it rotated back and forth a few times?” I asked Betty, pointing down at the page. She stood up and walked over, a bit slower than I might have liked, and looked down at the book.
“Ah yes... That one is actually our newest selection, as of this morning in fact,” she said, adjusting her glasses as she looked back up at me.
“Okay, thank you,” I said to Betty and looked back at the listings. "Well I guess I'll just have to see if I can swing back this way before the rotation," I added.
"Do be quick, those rare books never hang around for too long," She said with another smile before turning and heading back for her chair.
I focused back on the listing sheet and found that I couldn’t just select the options I wanted and make them appear. Instead the books had locations listed next to them, directing me to several different shelves within the space. I navigated the packed shelves until I found Gravity Wells and Why They’re Dangerous and Refractions of Reality. Even though I knew I was getting ahead of myself, I also made a point of finding just where Quantum Shenanigans for Beginners was before bringing the two books up to the register and purchasing them.
With that done and those in my B.E.L.T, I navigated to the opposite corner of the strip mall and back into the ViewFinder. Vanessa’s holographic avatar appeared as soon as I approached a wall and, after explaining to her what I was looking for, she directed me right to it. The Revolver actually came in fifteen sizes, with the smallest offering only a single extra loadout for 1,500 credits and the largest offering ten thousand alternates. I couldn't imagine what anyone would do with that many alternate loadouts but I was certainly not going to be affording its 10 million credit price tag anytime soon, so it was better to just pretend like it didn't exist. At least for now.
The Revolvers included a benefit most of the other interface upgrades didn’t. When you purchased one tier, the value of that tier was taken off of the next tier up, essentially giving you a reason to come back and upgrade as you go. Jon pointed out that with 10,500 credits remaining, I could easily afford to jump right up to a Giant Revolver which would offer me 6 alternate loadouts for 9,000 credits. But even with the new skill books I couldn’t imagine, at least at this level, filling out that many hotbars and even Jon had to admit it would be a huge waste of money to jump up that high that quickly, especially knowing I could come back and upgrade as I went.
I looked through the options but eventually decided that the Starter Revolver with it's single additional loadout for 1500 credits was going to be the best bet. In hindsight we both realized that we could have been more economical in how we had approached my shopping, as we easily could have afforded an extra book had we used the BOGO coupon differently, but there wasn't much we could do about it now. Even with that realization, I still had plenty of credits left over. While Jon and I did briefly discuss having me check out the equipment, I found myself heading right back for the bookstore.
Jon had said he had a couple dozen ability ideas for An Atomic Guide to Thermodynamics and I had a hard time not wanting to buy a book with Quantum Shenanigans in the title.