Jace took Esther and Snowy to Safe Haven. He knew there was an unofficial bounty on his head, and this town, set up by the CIA, was a Non-PVP zone where he could catch his breath. He needed to use his necklace to enact his human illusion, as many of the town’s NPC employees wouldn’t deal with an orc. Jace was barely through the town’s front gate when he got the notification.
[Nal Saikol Gladekin has died.]
[Nal Saikol Gladekin has left your party.]
Jace didn’t know if he should feel sad or happy. Surely a weight was lifted from the elf’s shoulders, but he was also about to be inundated with players trying to trick him into believing they had found his sister. Jace hoped the elf wouldn’t remember any of that once he was freed, but he still had to endure it now. “Gracie,” he said as they walked through the dark streets of the town, “keep me updated on Psycho’s module. I assume it’s resetting, and at least a few players should have anticipated something like this. They will speed-run it and try to snag Psycho, and I want to know what happens. I imagine if someone is successful, they will keep quiet about it, but since everyone else will get kicked out, we will hear about it that way.”
{Right,} she said. {You aren’t going to try and beat them? If one of them gets him free, I don’t know how you will fix it. We have the pendant, which should give Psycho a +40 to save against their spells, but that is only 200 mana to overcome.
“I’m guessing the illusion spell is already expensive. If Drescher needed to employ a high-level mage to cast the spell originally, bumping the difficulty up by 200 mana might put it out of reach. Plus, I’m hoping Gandhi will account for everything in a version of the module where the pendant doesn’t exist. Esther gets situational bonuses to charm players that are infatuated with her. In a module where Psycho finds the pendant and thinks his sister is alive, he might have situational penalties beyond the -40 to believe anything that gives him hope. Now I’m hoping the scripted encounter goes differently, and the players will have to make bluff checks or know specific information about the sister’s life to pass inspection. Either way, let me know what happens.”
It was about midnight global time, and several shops were closed, but Jace found a temple to restore the levels Esther drained. She apologized for it but licked her lips as she did so, letting Jace know she had enjoyed it. Then he went to a weapon shop and sold some of the equipment he had picked up. The fighter had dropped armor and weapons no one in his group could use. The Mage’s equipment looked valuable but was enchanted for her specific use. It was the same with most of the Priest’s items. Gromphy had possessed the ability to overcome that restriction in the Torrintank Keep module, and Jace hoped he kept it. He didn’t sell those items, and the store wouldn’t take them. The clerk did offer a king’s ransom for the arrows he had taken from Psycho’s old tower, but those would be a present for the elf once he was free, and Jace held on to them.
Next was a 24-hour restaurant because – shocker – Esther was hungry. Jace located a place that he thought would serve pancakes and found the place surprisingly busy. They wouldn’t have customarily allowed Snowy to enter, but Jace was a bit of a hero in the town, and they made an exception. The booths had a privacy setting that allowed only NPCs who worked in the diner to hear or interact with them, and Jace took advantage of that, preventing him from being swarmed by curious players who wanted to meet him or flirt with Esther. Still, he could feel the eyes of everyone in the place focused on them. Most people in the town didn’t work for an international terrorist, but the criminal underground would be foolish not to have a few spies in the city.
Esther tried to order pancakes, but they didn’t have them. Instead, the waitress offered waffles with fruit and fresh whipped cream. Jace convinced the vampire that they were actually better than pancakes and put in a double order. Esther didn’t look convinced, but Jace ignored her and retreated into his settings screen.
{You went up two levels,} Gracie informed him. {You killed three NPCs with Esther’s help and then three more with Psycho and Esther. You are halfway to level 17 already. Even I’m impressed.}
“Yes,” Jace said, “but we nearly died both times.”
{Which is why nobody does what you are doing. When you go up against another PC, you have a chance to lose all your levels or go up one. You might win that bet once or twice, but you can only lose it once. Anyway, let’s look at you. You can distribute the skill points, but we have other decisions. At level 15, you get a new bonus Shaman spell, a bonus Divine spell, an added point to one ability, and you can change your secondary key ability. You are at Constitution now.}
“Let’s add the point to Spirit, as we have been doing, and I think I want to change my other key ability to Wisdom. I need to focus on Magic defense. With my parrying ability, I can hold up to just about any attacker, but I am a pretty easy target for debilitating spells.”
{Okay. Your level 16 feat will be a Wisdom one. Any ideas for your level 15 Shaman feat?}
“I need to be able to tunnel through stone for our assault on the Stormhold fortress. What are my options?”
{There are two. The first is unsurprisingly called Stone Tunnel. Its design is based on your level. Every foot in diameter costs one level, and then you spend the rest on length. So if you wanted to stand upright in the tunnel, you could spend four levels on the radius, making it an 8-foot-tall tunnel, and then at level 16, you could spend the other 12 levels on length at five feet per level for a total of 60 feet. The cost of the tunnel is those two numbers multiplied together. Four times twelve is 48 mana. If you wanted it to last for more than one round, you need to pay the cost twice and then the time, so that tunnel for ten rounds would cast almost 150 mana. You could make it long and skinny with a 1-foot radius and 75 feet long, and it would only cost 80 mana for ten rounds.}
“What happens when the time runs out? Does the tunnel collapse? What if there is someone inside it?”
{If there is a significant living thing in the tunnel, meaning not a bird or squirrel, or if there is a magical or quest-specific item, the tunnel stays open at double the time cost until the item is removed. On the one hand, it is nice that you can’t kill any of your party members accidentally, but on the other, an enemy can throw a magical item in your tunnel, which will drain ten mana from you each round. You can’t open a tunnel directly under someone, and it can never be a dead-end tunnel. If the stone is thicker than your tunnel is long, the game will tell you your location is invalid. It is a good way to judge the thicknesses of walls. It can be dispelled. When that happens, anything inside the tunnels gets kicked out at one end or the other, and the tunnel closes. Also, while you can tunnel through raw ore, you can’t go through metal. All someone has to do is put a little rebar in their castle walls, and you can’t tunnel through them.}
“What’s the other option?”
{Lava. It can be used as a tunnel spell. It allows you to turn a radius of stone into lava. It costs more, but it is permanent. Once again, you can’t cast it directly under people, but you can cast it before them, and then they fall into a pit of lava and take fire damage. If you cast it on a stone wall, the stone will melt and flow out of the cavity. You can cast it repeatedly and drill through the wall.}
“Sounds fun,” Jace said, “But for what I need, the tunnel spell sounds better. For my Divine spell, is there anything I can have to combat magic cast against me?”
{You can learn a boon that raises your magic defense, but that can just be dispelled.}
“What about Dispel,” Jace asked. “Gandhi had said she designed Dexmachi, my god, as a paladin god, and paladins are often inquisitors who fight magic.”
Jace could hear Gracie searching as she wasn’t familiar with the custom god’s spell list. {Yes,} she finally said, {I see it here. That is a good choice. Dispel is cheap, as you only have to pay five mana per level of the spell and 50 to eliminate any time that might be remaining. If a level 20 mage casts the spell, it costs 150 mana. Unfortunately, you can only memorize one version of the spell. If you memorize it for level 20, you will be overpaying when removing level 15 spells, but that is better than memorizing a level 15 version and not having enough.}
“Okay. Sounds good. For my feat at 15, I can take a Spirit feat. I see many players with Mana Body. That looks good for me.”
{It is,} she agreed. {It adds your Constitution base to your mana pool. At level 16, that is an additional 160 mana you will have access to.}
“Should we have picked that one before?”
{They are all good. I feel you have been limited by your totem range far more often than you have run out of mana. But now that you are casting at least two totems and one boon in every fight, and you want to be able to dispel everything, it is an excellent time to take it. For level 16, you need to take a Wisdom feat. Anti-Magic Spirit looks good. It gives you five times your Spirit base as a discount when casting Dispel. Your Spirit is at 19 now, which is a base of 8, so it costs 40 less mana when casting Dispel.}
“That should work.”
{Good, now on to Esther. NPCs don’t get an ability boost every five levels, and she doesn’t get any bonus spells, so all we have to worry about are feats and switching her secondary ability. I suggest we move it back to Strength. I have a feeling your enemies are debating what Esther’s grappling score is, and they will eventually figure it out. She easily broke Christine’s neck but couldn’t do it to the second priest you fought, not that she wanted to. The more she is observed in combat, the more people will be able to figure it out. So let’s make it even more broken. Athletic is considered a Strength skill, but since Esther has the Acrobat feat, which allows her to use her Dexterity base for it, she can treat it as either. At level 15, she needs to take a Dex feat, and at level 16, she needs to take a Strength one. She can take Athletic Training and Specialist and get a +5 bonus to her Athletic ability. After two more levels, she will be at +15, and no one will be able to stop her.}
“Sounds good,” Jace agreed. He took a peek out of his inventory to see Esther snarfing down the first plate of waffles with whip cream all over her face. He smiled and returned to his settings.
{We removed Fire from her memorized spells since you joined up with Draya, but giving her Acid now instead would be a good compromise. Having a damage spell at her disposal to release overflow mana is a good idea. Plus, I feel she won’t need Heavy Weapon as a spell for much longer once Gromphy is done modifying her weapons.}
“You can tell what he is doing?”
{I have a hunch,} Gracie said. {Now, on to Draya . . .}
“Wait,” Jace stopped her, “we can update her here?”
{Sort of,} Gracie said. {None of the changes will take effect until you guys see each other again, but she levels up with you, so we can plan it out, and then it will be automatic once she is within range again. Like Esther, her abilities don’t go up, but she selects two feats and can add a spell or two. For level 15, she should obviously take her next Fire feat, increasing the damage to +75%. And, at level 15, she gets another of her dragon abilities. Let’s go for Dragon Breath.
{For her level 16 Spirit feat, she has access to dragon ones. Dragon Sustain is a feat that allows her to keep a dragon ability going for a cost of 100 mana a round. When she initiates Dragon Spirit, she will have almost 1,000 mana, so she can keep it going for almost ten more rounds. Of course, if she uses that mana to cast spells, she will run out quickly.}
“Is there any way to get her Mana Generation up to 100 per round?”
{No,} Gracie answered quickly. {That would be quite broken. With her Dragon Spirit active, it will be at 26 per round, so every four rounds, she will generate another 100, so she could keep it going for 13 rounds total, but that is only if she doesn’t cast anything else. She does have Fire Mana, which means she can cast a pillar of fire on herself and absorb the potential damage as mana. That takes a full round and costs some mana, but she can do that once every four rounds to keep it going. That would interrupt her ability to attack and defend, however. Unless . . .}
“What is it?” Jace asked.
{Hold on, it is my turn to break the game for a change. It looks like the dress you stole from your elven mage friend is an elemental protection robe. It works like the slashing protection ring Esther has. You charge it with 250 mana, and it protects against 100 damage from the element type you choose: Fire, Cold, Acid, or Lightning. It offers no protection for the others. I’ve heard of curses that reverse that effect.}
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“So it does 100 damage instead of preventing it?”
{Correct.}
“But for how long?” Jace asked. “I’ve been basing a lot of my game breaking on the fact that the game doesn’t cheat. Every powerful thing has to come from somewhere. I just need to find the source. You can’t spend 250 mana and turn that into 100 damage over and over, can you?”
{Hexes and curses are powerful and dangerous things. They draw their power from demonic entities in the game that are bottomless pits of energy. Use them wrong, and they will utterly destroy you, but figure out how to tame them, and you will be powerful.}
“So Gromphy will be able to curse this robe, so it does 100 damage to her every round?”
{He is not a warlock, so he doesn’t have access to the spell, and your buddy Master Dayring won’t have it in Crestfall, but it exists in the game. I’m sure you can find it. If Gromphy can get his hands on a scroll with the hex, he could also probably craft a few anti-curse potions for Draya to carry around to drink when she wants to turn the robe off. Also, we should give her the Mage Armor spell. Her Dragon Scales ability is better, but she can only keep it permanently if she spends another 100 mana per round. The mage version is cheaper.}
“I like the sound of that,” Jace said. He exited his setting screen again and saw Esther laboring over her last bites of food. He pulled out the pendant that had belonged to Psycho’s sister and held it up before his friend. Esther paused and put her fork down.
“What is that?”
“This necklace belonged to the female elf you will impersonate. I need you to design an outfit that matches the person who wore this.” He handed it across the table.
Esther grabbed it and closed her eyes. Jace didn’t know what was possible in the game or how far the woman could press her Fashion Design ability, so he said a prayer to Dexmachi to help out. Across the table, Esther began to nod. “Yes, I can see her. She is lovely. You should have brought Draya. I look nothing like her.”
“That’s only because you have whipped cream all over your face.”
Esther smirked at him and reached for a napkin. “That’s not it,” she said.
Jace feared this feeling of inadequacy would be a common theme on this mission. Esther was designed for straightforward combat, not subterfuge. “I brought you,” he said. “I trust you to pull this off. Draya is too timid. I need someone who can act.”
“You need me to role play?” she had a glint in her eye, and Jace was sure she had experience with the concept in her former life.
“Well, this is a role-playing game.”
Esther cocked her head. “What do you mean by that? Is Psycho’s quest like the one we did to get the goblin?”
Jace shook his head, sorry he had brought it up. “No. But you will be playing a part.”
She nodded, a new sense of confidence growing in her. “I can do this, but it will require many changes. I believe her name is Mur Calumis. She wore very different clothes and armor and used a short sword and a shield. I can make my dress look slightly different, but not like the images I saw in my head.”
“That’s why I had you leave all your equipment back with Gromphy. We can buy you new stuff as close to the elf maiden’s attire as possible, so you only have to make minor changes.”
“But what about this?” she asked, drawing an imaginary circle around her face and upper body. “Brown hair, tanned skin, pointed ears, thin lips, flat chest. I don’t know how to adjust my appearance to match those.”
Jace lifted his necklace out of his shirt. “You will wear this,” he said. He didn’t want to give it to her now, or he would revert to an orc.
Esther understood that too. “But then you will be an orc; Psycho will shoot you on sight.”
Jace smiled. “Let me worry about the strategy. For now, we need to go shopping.” Jace paid the bill for the food and then left to return to the shop where he had sold equipment. Esther took her time picking out her outfit and spared no expense. A long brown and green dress, boots, a +2 medium shield, a +2 short sword, and even a +3 suit of elven chainmail. She insisted it was the closest thing the store had to what Mur Calumis wore, but it was also the most expensive thing in the shop. Jace tried not to think about the 1,000s of gold coins he was spending and how they could be traded one-for-one with dollars. He was working for the CIA right now and buying this in a CIA town, so he should get it for free, but the NPC clerk didn’t quite understand that. Jace would have to fill out an expense report.
Once they had everything they needed, Esther changed and slightly adjusted the outfit. Jace whistled. She looked like an elegant lady in a medieval court. Esther looked down and frowned. “Not exactly my style.” She kicked her legs in the constricting dress. “How am I going to wrap my legs around people to grapple them?”
“You aren’t,” Jace said.
Her frown deepened, and she switched back to her black dress, saving the new outfit so she could return to it in a flash. Jace led her out of the store and toward the travel node.
“Okay, Gracie, I am actually going to tell you my plan beforehand.”
{Oohh, lucky me. Wait, let me write today’s date down.}
“Ha ha,” he replied dryly. “But I need to know if this will work before I risk my life. I am an orc, so I have an advantage in blending into this module. I will act like a defector to the rest of the tribe and return Mur Calumis to Psycho in exchange for him helping me to kill all the orcs.”
{Just the two of you?}
“I don’t know how effective Esther will be without being able to use her vampire abilities, and if she does that in front of Psycho, our cover will be blown. Besides, I don’t really even need his help. I plan to enter the orc camp and challenge the half-orc leader to a duel because they are serving an unholy god. What is his name, but the way?”
{Thor Shorshth,} she replied.
“Thor Shorth?” he tried.
{No,} Gracie said and enunciated slowly. {Thor Shor sh-th.}
“Thor Shorshth . . . got it. Anyway, they are following the wrong god. That is why they failed with the elves and why Psycho can kill them so easily. Their god is not protecting them. I am a shaman, and I worship Trockstike, the storm god. And I will challenge Thor Shorth . . .uh, Thor to a duel to see whom the gods favor. I win, of course, and they all convert.”
{I see you have been planning this for a while. Is this why you’ve been carrying around that stupid idol in your inventory? Trockstike gives his followers lighting ability, which fits with the one offensive spell you know. He is also Guile, Chaotic, and Progressive. Sort of like Thor and Loki had a baby who preferred vengeance to justice.}
“I didn’t think of it like that, but yeah. Then I cast my righteous judgment on them, and we get the same chain reaction as with the mummies.”
{It goes without saying that nothing like this has ever been tried before. Not many missionaries in the game try to convert orcs to a new religion. You do realize that Trockstike also protects all his followers from electric attacks.}
“I don’t care if they cut the damage in half if it is multiplied by eight first,” Jace said. “What I don’t know is if converting will actually change everyone’s alignment or not.”
{As I said, no one has done this before. Your god gave you the ability to convict people and change their alignment, so if anyone can do it, you can. However, this is not an Honest strategy, so Dexmachi probably won’t help you. Also, orcs are Traditional, so without this trick of yours, they will take zero damage.”
Jace knew it was a risk but didn’t have any other quick plans to kill 50 orcs without recruiting a bunch of people he couldn’t trust to help. They arrived at the travel node, and Gracie gave him directions to a city on the western edge of the continent bordering the massive forest that covered thousands of square miles. From that town, one could initiate dozens of quests with several elven villages. Many ranger players had their strongholds in this region. It was usually only busy with level 8-12 druids, rangers, and the occasional fighter. Now, it was swamped with people. Characters as high as level 22 were seen moving about the city, trying to intimidate other players. It was a Peaceful Non-PVP zone, so everyone was relatively safe.
Jace thought the town looked like Disney World at night. A fantasy village lit with hundreds of lanterns hanging from the eaves of wooden cottages. Flower gardens spotted the scenery while elves, halflings, and humans walked around in Renaissance fair attire. Wooden carts with goods for sale lined the streets, and a magical fountain with colors sparkling in the water sat in the middle of the town square. To complete the theme park vibe, a long line of people stretched out from one small shack. {That is where you need to go to initiate the quest,} Gracie said. {Looks like there is a bit of a backup.}
“Yeah, that is my fault. How does it work?”
{A local merchant was expecting a shipment of wine from Psycho’s village. When it was a week late, he sent his two sons to investigate. Only one came back saying they were attacked by orcs. The merchant wants vengeance for his son and to know what happened to the elves. After you agree to help, he transports you to the edge of the correct forest.}
“How long is the encounter with the merchant?” Jace asked.
{Five to seven minutes,} Gracie said. {However, I bet they are taking longer. If I were the one trying to initiate this quest knowing what most people know about you, I would ask as many questions as possible. You can talk to the one son that came back too. They probably figure that you changed something when you reset the module so that it is solvable and will dig for every extra clue they can. I’m guessing the merchant sends you on your way at some point, but players could take up to 15 minutes to ensure they know everything.}
Jace saw over 100 people in line. He was sure there were some groups of four or five, but all you needed was a mage and a female elf. There were dozens of elf maidens in the queue, giving Jace a rough estimate of how many parties there were. He even saw some players going up to female elf NPCs working in the village selling flowers or maintaining shops, offering them hundreds of gold coins if they would go on an adventure with them. Of course, none of those characters were eligible to join your party, but Jace had stolen several NPCs as party members, so anything could happen. Some players might even think the sister was now hidden in this village, and they would search every nook and cranny.
“It will take hours for this line to clear,” Jace said. They stood just inside the entrance to the village in a dark alley between two closed shops. So far, no one had noticed them. The place was swarming with so many influential players and unique characters that a level 16 man and woman, neither wearing armor, brought no attention. He watched some players bartering toward the front of the line and realized someone could get rich just by standing in the queue and letting players pay them to cut. No one was going to let Jace jump positions. “Can we walk there?” Jace asked, knowing that every location on the map had a physical presence.
{It is several miles away, but you should be able to do it in two hours. The land between here and there is a Level 15 Hostile Non-PVP zone, so you will have to fight forest monsters, but no players. I don’t think many other players would risk it. They would end up expending a bunch of mana and spells in the process, and not everyone is a shaman with a Mana Generation score of 21 or a vampire who can refill on any enemy she finds. Plus, snowy will give you a fair warning of any danger. A ranger could too, but most of the players in line are squishy mages ready to cast illusion spells.}
“Right,” he said. “We’ll take the long way, which is the quick way.”
Jace, Esther, and Snowy turned back toward the village entrance and found two familiar faces sneaking behind them. Jace wanted to say something harsh to Snowy for almost allowing them to be ambushed, but one of them was Sylvester, and he imagined the tracker had several skills and spells to mask his movements. The other was a level eight mage.
“Pieter,” Jace greeted, recognizing Drescher’s former mage. The shaman knew the player had restarted, and getting to level eight in a week was no small feat. They were in a Non-PVP zone, so the man was safe, and he wore an evil grin that Jace guessed he would never try if there were any chance he could be attacked. Jace had killed him when he was only level 10. Now he was 16. Esther and Snowy growled in response to the enemies.
“There’s no reason for hostilities,” Sylvester said, showing no outward hard feelings for how Esther had treated him before. “I am actually just here to collect the second half of my payment. You did make it to the goblin, I assume? I didn’t hang around for the victory celebration, but I heard two acid bombs were sent up to the defenders. I doubt Gromphy would do that on his own. That has Jace Thorne written all over it.”
As much as Jace wanted to give Wallace credit for the maneuver, he figured it best to keep the paladin off these two villains’ radar. “Yes, thank you for so kindly showing Esther the way. She told me you were the perfect gentleman. I will gladly pay you if you can provide me with the recording you made of your entire time with Esther. I hired you to know the way to the secret entrance. But Esther says you took a winding path that she can’t remember. But I will pay you if you give me a recording of everything that led up to the tunnel she moved through.”
Sylvester was professional enough not to react in anger, but Jace saw the corner of his mouth twitch. “I don’t think I made a recording,” he lied. There was no way his operator didn’t record everything. “Oh, well. I guess we’ll have to find some other arrangement to settle your debt to me.” Now he smiled broadly. “What did you do to Psycho? I’m sure you already have the reports that he can no longer be tricked.”
{I haven’t heard that yet,} Gracie said. {But he is WAY more connected than I am.}
Jace gave no indication that his operator was talking to him. Sylvester nodded past the shaman toward the queue of players. “They are all waiting in line to die. An arrow through their head. But you know something, don’t you? You changed something. What was it?”
“You think that information is worth 1,500?” Jace asked, referencing his supposed debt to this informant. “I’d be shocked if I couldn’t sell it for ten times that.”
“One hundred fifty thousand,” Pieter spoke up for the first time. “If it is information we can use to free Psycho the right way.” Jace smiled. He could tell them the secret and be confident they wouldn’t be able to pass the quest anyway. Not without the mana stone or pendant he had. Even with them, they would need a female elf.
Sylvester smiled, happy he had joined forces with someone with deep pockets. “You can’t possibly need him. You have a vampire. You have a dragon, by all reports. And you have whatever Gromphy is. There are other archers. Take the money.”
“You can shove-” Esther started, but Jace raised his hand to stop her.
“You can come with us if you like,” Jace said. “Free of charge. We could use a ranger in the woods.”
Pieter looked confused. “What are they . . .”
“They are going to walk it,” Sylvester said gruffly, realizing the clever strategy. Neither one was equipped to survive two hours at night in a Level 15 Hostile forest. He might be able to slink through as a tracker, but he knew Jace and Snowy would be sure to attract as many creatures as possible and set them all on the low-level players as best they could. It was Non-PVP, but Jace could ensure their deaths as much as if he could sick Esther directly on them. The informant smiled at them thinly. “Maybe another time, then.” Pieter wanted to press it, but Sylvester was wiser, and the two men left.
“I want to kill both of them,” Esther said.
“Is there anyone we’ve met that you don’t want to kill?” Jace asked.
“I liked Wallace.”
Jace shrugged. “This isn’t the right time. We will see them again, I’m sure.” With that, they slipped out of the village, went to the western side, and headed into the dark woods.