Clean-up was fairly routine after the heat of the dead monster had cooled down. Gromphy and Psycho spent their time rooting through the armadillion’s remains. The crafter was interested in body parts, while the archer wanted the mithril arrows back. Most had been melted, but the goblin promised that he could fix them and make more. After raiding the keep's treasure room, he had a trunk full of mithril, and he could keep the elf stocked for a long time. Jace was beginning to realize Psycho loved arrows more than Esther loved pancakes.
The armadillion was worth two million experience, the most the game would allow for one creature. Because five characters contributed to its destruction, Jace got 400k. It was enough to advance to level 17. He could worry about that later, knowing he would also have to handle Esther and Draya’s leveling. There were more important things to worry about now.
All those not involved in dissecting a monster hurried back to the front of the fortress and had to do significant excavation to uncover the three hostages. They were out of healing potions, but none were Chaotic, so Jace could use his ring to return them to their reduced maximums. Esther wanted to go back inside and look through the loot all the dead characters had left behind, but Jace didn’t think they had time for that. He told her she could come back here whenever she wanted when he wasn’t around.
Now that he controlled the stronghold, all the shamans and trolls would obey him. He could transfer that authority to Psycho and Esther and would tell them to at least set up a defensive system to make sure no one tried to steal the fortress. Unless they killed Jace, other players couldn’t own it, but they could start mining if they wanted.
One of the menu screens for Stormhold showed a list of all the unique NPCs that had died during the last combat session. Normally, they would wake up in their rooms, but since their party leaders were dead, they didn’t have a home. Jace had feared Brock would hold his companions hostage, but now it was the other way around. He sent a private message to Wallace with a screenshot of the potential companions and then scheduled most of them to reset in six hours, allowing the other player time if she wanted to pursue any of them.
Four of the NPCs had the option for him to return them to their owner. They had belonged to Lexi, which was confirmation that the druid hadn’t perished. She was definitely no longer here, and any private travel nodes she might have had were deleted when the stronghold was reset. Jace decided to keep these NPCs in limbo for now. He assumed the powerful woman would resurface at some point, and it didn’t hurt to have a few negotiating chips.
Jace found he had lots of options for Stormhold. In addition to making the freight elevator operatable again, he could control the settings on the bridge. It would always appear the same, but he could relax the restrictions on how many people could cross at once and what the Dexterity check was. It allowed the owner to bring the shamans and trolls across without difficulty. Also, honored guests wouldn’t have to risk their lives visiting. They would have to get over a bit of vertigo, but that was half the fun.
Instead of messing with any of that, Jace put a private travel node right in front of the main door. Any of his group would be able to enter the module from this location, so they wouldn’t even need to worry about the bridge. Jace had been burned in the past by giving Esther too much control in his modules but didn’t care about this one as much and made her and Psycho co-owners so they could control the bridge and command the minions. Draya would be too busy in school to assist. Once they had the place fixed up, he would probably sell it, though the CIA would likely consider it theirs, and he might not have a say in the matter. With the Balrog in the Basement taken care of, it would be open for limited mining again. No one would want to go deeper, but even shaving a few feet off the walls in Mithril Palace would net someone a hefty profit.
Once Psycho and Gromphy finished with the armadillion, Jace led the large group out of the module. They traveled first to Safe Haven. Jace brought the three injured players to a temple, and after a few rounds, they were on the road to recovery. They thanked the team profusely, but Jace played it off as him just doing his job. Esther ate up the gratitude, and Jace could tell the human MIT student wanted to ask her out, but his friend stopped him. They would return to their stronghold, get Choi all the money he needed, and then log off.
Jace wanted a break too, and after another round of handshakes, he led his group back to his home. He realized his stronghold needed a name. Cresthold? Stone Haven? Diamond Peak? He’d work on it. The sun was setting over the mountains in their time zone, and after a good meal where Esther and Draya entertained Trixna and Topper with stories of their adventures, it was time for most of the characters to go to bed. Draya had school in the morning.
Jace found his way to his bedroom, and Esther followed him. “Is now later?” she asked.
He nodded and had a seat, wanting nothing other than to log off, but figured he should handle this first. He had thought of a whole speech to give her but decided to take a shortcut. “You can keep the stone.”
“What?” she asked, her hand already at the opening of her gem bag to retrieve it, assuming Jace would want it back.
“I believe it is bad for you, and if you use it too often, it will corrupt you, but you are your own person, and you showed great control in helping me these past two days.” For Jace it had only been one day, but his NPCs had experienced more.
“You weren’t with Gromphy and me before when . . .” her voice trailed off. Jace knew there was a story he would need to hear at some point, but it didn’t look like she was ready to tell it. “I don’t always make the right decision.”
“No,” Jace said. “And neither do I. As Draya will happily tell you, half of my plans fail spectacularly.”
“But you always come through in the end,” Esther said, not letting Jace play the humble card.
“And so do you,” he replied, producing a smile on her face. “I don’t want to be in a situation in the future where our only hope of survival is for you to use that stone, but it is locked in a chest back here. If it becomes a problem, we will deal with it. But for now, you should keep it.”
Esther took a few steps forward and kissed him on his orc cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “I will endeavor to make good decisions.”
Yeah, right, Jace thought. “Just don’t kill Gromphy while I’m gone.”
Esther laughed and skipped out of the room. Jace smiled at her departure, closed his eyes, and logged off.
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The other CIA agents were waiting for him when he woke up.
“That was incredible,” Stephen said. “It was an honor to watch.”
“We recorded everything,” Allison said. “That final battle will get millions of views once we post it.”
Jason Hawthorne looked over at Gracie. “Can you ever see Adam in the video?”
The woman shook her head, knowing that Jason would want to keep that ace up his sleeve. Plus, if anyone ever learned of the golem’s vulnerability to lightning, they could use it to kill half his team. “I can edit the audio when you tell Gromphy to put him in the cold bomb and have Esther aim at the silver target. People will just have to guess how you summoned a 7200 lightning bolt. They still don’t know how you did it against the mummies, and that attack was astronomically bigger. Your enemies already need to come prepared to repel dragon fire. Now they think you are Thor too.”
“Good,” Jason said, seeing how that perception would benefit him. “Give the people what they want but wait six hours before releasing it. I want Wallace to have a head start on getting herself a companion, and people will be camping out in the NPC-specific modules if they know I took on the Stormhold group. This fight wasn’t as public as my bought with Dresher, so it should take everyone else a bit longer to figure out what happened. I suppose no one will attack our new fortress if they think I can summon that kind of defensive lightning.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Is there anything else you need?” Allison asked. “Are you hungry? We have a hotel room for you and Gracie. Uh . . . I mean two rooms. Definitely separate rooms.” She was nervous and talking way too fast.
“Pizza, a beer, and a bed would be great,” he said. The young woman scampered off to make it a reality.
“What’s going to happen to all my new stuff?” Jason asked the more veteran members of his team. “Do I get to keep any of it?”
Stephen laughed. “I thought you just played the game to help people. Don’t tell me you are getting attached to your character. You know it isn’t real, right?”
Jason laughed unconvincingly. It certainly felt real.
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It was the day after they had returned from Stormhold, and Gromphy was tired. He didn’t have the constitution scores of the other team members and had slept little. He had done a lot of crafting yesterday. Not the volume he used to do in the Torrintank Keep module, but much more valuable items with more eccentric components. He had performed spells he had never cast before. And he knew if he stayed with Jace, that would only continue. He remembered wanting to leave his leader during the heat of battle when Jace had forced him to put Adam in a bomb and then threw it down the gullet of that abomination. The memory gave the goblin chills.
But it had all worked out gloriously. Adam’s figurine seemed unharmed, and he could feel the magic still working in the object. He would give his friend another full day to recover, but he didn’t expect any issues.
Seeing Jace’s complex plan come to completion with the destruction of that powerful enemy had been euphoric. The women liked to joke about how bad their leader was at coming up with solutions, but they were wrong. As a master crafter who devoted his life to taking unique and powerful ingredients and combining them into something greater than the sum of their parts, Gromphy appreciated what Jace could accomplish and knew that no one else could have produced the results the orc shaman had.
After briefly thinking about leaving the group, the crafter was more committed to this team than ever before. He had crafted several powerful items for Draya, Esther, and Psycho, but Jace had asked nothing for himself besides a cursed ring. The crafter felt Jace deserved more.
The goblin had sorted through the armadillion remains and hadn’t found much of note. It had massive diamond molars that could be sold for a high price but were too large to craft into anything useful. Its bones were laced with titanium and adamantium but were too large to make anything other than a giant weapon that no one in the group could wield. He could whittle them down, but the metals that made them valuable also made them resistant to manipulation.
Only one item from the monster’s body had any actual crafting value, and it sat before Gromphy as he tried to figure out how to use it. It was the mana core of the armadillion. Considering it had come from such a massive beast, it was relatively small, only six inches across at its widest dimension. It was a crystal, sharing properties of diamonds, glass, quartz, and several other minerals. It was on life support right now, hooked up to the emerald stone Jace had rescued from the lich’s module.
Without the stone, it would have still kept its magical signature for a while but would have lost its ability to ever link with another living creature after a few hours. Gromphy had acted quickly and was convinced he could implant it into a new host. It spat out a few ounces of molten rock every few minutes, and the goblin needed to suspend it over a sink filled with water. Every eight hours, he had to empty the cooled pebbles outside, but it was worth it to preserve the item. Someone with a unique connection to stone could possibly harness its power. Perhaps a stone shaman.
But there were two significant problems with giving this item to Jace. It operated with Chaotic magic, and it produced fire. Both of those ran contrary to his leader’s nature. The Chaos wouldn’t work in an Ordered individual, and the volcanic fire would kill him.
Gromphy was confident he could overcome the first problem. The core was shaped as if by a drunk sculptor with hundreds of facets and confusing angles. There was no symmetry or precision in its design. He could imagine that any mana reverberating within this structure would bounce around at seemingly random intervals and never produce the same result. He had several flawless gems at his disposal and was sure he could reshape this item into an ordered configuration of perfect symmetry so the energy produced would be more reliable. It would require tools he didn’t have yet, but he was skilled enough to do the job.
The second problem took more work. He needed to cancel the fire aspect of the core, so it generated neutral stone mana. Gromphy required a frost core, probably more than one, and he couldn’t pick them up at any store in Crestfall or Safe Haven. He knew of several monsters one could kill to get such a core, but it would have to be done with precision, and it was best if the beasts were still alive while he worked on it. The armidillion’s core had stayed alive for several hours, but a smaller creature wouldn’t last that long. And while this core would retain its magic for months after its death, a normal mana core would likely be useless after only a couple of hours. It would take a skilled warrior to render such a monster Helpless and able to be transported back to his lab. It was a good thing he had powerful friends.
Gromphy left his quarters and walked through the stronghold to Esther’s room. He respectfully announced his presence at the door through the magical bell system Trixna had installed, not wanting to intrude but confident the women were still awake.
“Come in.” Draya’s voice was loud and clear.
Gromphy entered and walked the short series of right angles until he was in the central part of their room, surprised by what he saw. He was looking for Esther, but Psycho sat across from Draya with books covering their large table. “Oh, hi, Gromphy,” the mage said. “What do you need?”
“Uh,” he hesitated. “What art thee doing?”
“Studying,” Draya replied. “I’m trying to learn the art of illusion. It really is an art, too. It is so much more complicated than throwing a fireball. You have to be prepared for just about anything to come up.” She stopped as she realized she was saying too much, getting carried away with her new passion. “Anyway, half the texts are written in elvish, and Psycho is helping me translate.”
“And thee has’t nothing better to doth?” Gromphy asked, turning to the archer.
“Actually,” the elf replied. “She is helping me more than I am helping her. Our last fight reminded me how low my Magic Defense is, and Draya is helping me study to learn ways to improve it. Really, we are helping each other.”
“I see,” the goblin nodded. “I wast looking for Esther. Doth thee knoweth where she is?”
Draya shook her head insistently. Psycho laughed. “Nobody’s talking,” the elf said. “Trixna and Draya say they don’t know, but I can tell they are lying. She has a lover in Crestfall.”
“She does not!” Draya said a bit too defensively. “You are talking nonsense.”
“Where else is she, and why won’t you tell us?” he asked. “When I go somewhere, I tell you.”
“You just go hunting with Snowy. The wolf would tell me anyway.”
“So, tell us where Esther is?”
“I. Don’t. Know.” Draya said.
Psycho laughed and turned to Gromphy. “See, she is lying. Esther has a boyfriend in Crestfall.” Psycho leaned his chair away from the table and half-closed his eyes as he held up his hands. “I can see it all clearly. The man is a chef. Makes the best pancakes in all the realms.” Draya started giggling. “He is tall, dark skin, with piercing blue eyes. He’s not a fighter, no. Instead, he cooks and plays music, singing beautiful ballads to our fearsome rogue.” Draya was laughing now. “He makes candlelit dinners for her, and they eat pancakes under the stars. And his name is . . . Thunder Tightbottom.”
Draya burst out uncontrollably. “I wish that was his name. It would be so . . .” but then her voice trailed off as she realized what she had said.
Psycho’s chair slammed back down to all fours. “Ah ha! So, there is someone!”
Draya scowled at his cruel trick. “Maybe. But if there is, I didn’t tell you. And he wouldn’t be in Crestfall. I swear, I won’t help you with your magic if you keep pressing me.”
The two had a staring contest for a few seconds before Gromphy sighed in frustration. “Perhaps at which hour she returns, thee can sendeth her to see me.”
Psycho pulled his eyes away from the young woman and turned to the goblin. “What do you need her for?”
Gromphy wondered if he should say since secrets were so popular in this group. “I requireth a polar worm, an ice drake, or a frost salamander. At most, six of some combination.”
Psycho’s eyes lit up. “I know what those are,” he said, closing the confusing book he had been trying to read. “I’m a hunter. I can get you a dozen.”
“I shan’t but the six, but I needeth them alive, preferably unharmed.”
Psycho’s face fell. Taking things alive was not his specialty. The goblin interpreted the look. “Esther can draineth them to level one. I can provide her a wand to preventeth them from expiring, and thus she can Grapple them securely and proffer them to me unharmed.”
Psycho nodded, understanding how easy it would be for the vampire to do those things. “I see.”
“If’t be true thee wouldst liketh to try, beest mine own guest. Otherwise, alert Esther that I beseech her aid, wherever she might be.” With that, he left the room and let them resume their studying.
The END
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And this is the end of Book 2.
I don’t beg for ratings or favorites often, but if you’ve completed both books and enjoyed what you have read, I would love the feedback.
I do have ideas for book three and know what the central theme is, but there are a few tricks and puzzles I need to work out yet. Also, I need to write the short story to describe what happened with Esther and Gromphy when they went on their adventure to get Draya’s dress cursed. That will feed nicely into Book three. I'm also considering a short story that follows Wallace on one of her missions that will hint at things to come in Book three. Plus, Gromphy just challenged Psycho's ego by saying Esther would be better at a hunting mission than he would. There is no way the archer will let that pass. Maybe he will take Draya along. Please Follow if you want to be notified when these shorter stories begin posting.
Initially, I only had three stories outlined for this series, but now I have ideas on dealing with Draya and Gromphy’s backstories. Plus, a Balrog in Jace’s Basement needs to be dealt with soon. I'm not sure exactly when I will be continuing this story, but it will definitely be in 2023, probably in the summer.