The various Professionals were headed out of the church now that the office was concluded, and Jonas was looking for advice. The Faire had been pretty busy, and Jonas hadn’t found many people to talk to there, but the Sunday office drew everyone. And at least one person who did not have much time yesterday, but was willing to meet for a long talk today.
“Greetings Aethershaper,” said his contact, nearly surprising Jonas.
They traded again descriptors, which hadn’t changed anyway. Nolan Woolahan was a freshly minted tier five Competing Mauler.
“Sorry to have brushed you off yesterday, but I was very busy with the high-end traders there,” he excused himself.
“Interesting gear?”
“No, actually, more like interesting people. My company has a good number of lair licenses in tier four, but we’ve got a bunch of lairs that have significant sized Power Crystals. And Minkton’s Crystal Company wants to catch up to Laufrey, so they’re expanding vertically rather than horizontally.”
Jonas, frowned, not understanding the context. Woolahan immediately added, “They provide Power Crystals to England. They tried once to outbid us on the lairs, failed, and now they’re in negotiations with the Marquess to purchase outright the company. And its assets. And employees.”
The man sighed.
“From what I hear, it’s almost like working with the old Royal Labyrinth Company again. Too much focus on the business, not on the Professionals. So… I’m looking to bail out before that happens – because based on the company’s rumours, it’s going to – and scouting a bit the opportunities.”
“Ah.”
“I hear your High Labyrinth Office is expanding these days? Interested in a couple of level 350-plus people? If I’m getting out, I might be able to bring almost an entire team’s base. My Precise Ancillary would be willing to go and her Light Strategist husband will follow. Hook us with a defensive if I can’t persuade our Resilient Shieldrunner – he’s nearly tier five, don’t worry about it – and you got a kick-ass ready team. What do you say?”
Jonas laughed. That wasn’t what he was seeking, and he wasn’t about to commit to anything. Still… that was straight into Agni’s targets levels.
“I’m not in charge of recruitment. But I can pass your offer to my boss,” he replied.
“Wellesley? The War Office Duke, right? Hope he’s not going to have us to work to fuel the armies’ material supplies instead. If that’s what he’s expanding his company for… heard the original team is all but gone, and they’re keeping her Highness on Earth these days.”
The two men reached a small tavern not too far from the church, found a small table, and Jonas started.
“I’m mostly looking for levelling advice.”
“Uh? With the weird bonus your Milestone is showing, I’d have thought it would be easier for you? Unless you mean Professional build advice?”
“No, just getting XP. Even if my team doesn’t need as much per level, we still get the same experience per critter as anyone.”
“Well, there is nothing special about getting experience. Kill critters, fill your level.”
“We were ordered to get as many vitals and levels we could, to make sure the French couldn’t assassinate us, keep us dead and try to close the Gate again. So, we’re trying to figure out what gives us more experience. Books give calculations and formulae, but little advice on what this means in real-world practice.”
Jonas proceeded to explain their current test and goals.
Woolahan made a thoughtful face as he looked at the problem.
“I see what you’re shooting for. I have no idea what is going to be the best, it depends too much on the lairs, the outdoors and whatever is around where you go to, so I’m not going to be able to tell you if you can level faster in this outdoor zone or that zone’s lairs. But the balance is going to shift in favour of outdoors anyway.”
“How so?”
“The experience per critter drops as your team levels up. But it drops faster on levels lower than your own, compared to higher levels. Even though you kill things faster with more Milestones, it doesn’t change that much as long as you keep to the same areas and lairs.”
“So you’re saying that we should skip the lairs if we want levels?”
The Mauler raised his hands.
“No, no. Better gear is always useful because it lets you go into higher areas safely and efficiently. And for a self-sufficient team like yours without company stores, it should be absolutely essential to keep running lairs for better gear, because if you get potentials only from Milestones, it takes longer to move to new lairs and areas. But if you run lairs already close to your level, you’re far above what others can do anyway, so you can afford to skip running lairs for a while.”
Jonas pondered the implications.
“So, your advice is that we run some lairs, then focus on tier three, then start going in tier three lairs?”
“That would be my plan in your shoes, yes. Since you can empty whatever lairs you want, run as many you can, grab upgrades, then wait it out. It’s going to be boring going only outdoor, but… eh, welcome to the normal Professional world. I guess.”
The Gate into Outapis was now a familiar sight. The ochre expanses of the arid area stretched to the horizon for what was now their third round in the zone.
“That was the fastest Fast Travel charge ever spent,” Alton laughed.
One minute after confirming that everyone had their charge, they’d headed to the Outapis-Vuneras gate, and doubled back.
“How do we do this?” Ira asked.
“I spent most of Sunday trying to find the best route. Come,” Jonas said, unfolding a small map he’d sketched based on the notebook.
“Given that most lairs recycle in around eight days at this level, we can make rounds that way. We get to the south part quickly, then we cross back the other way, meaning we can do half of a dozen of those medium-end lairs twice including the max ones, but also do the oasis, the scorpid ruins and those two other lairs three times before we Recall in nineteen days.”
That was the agreed plan. It would leave every one of them with at least one charge of Fast Travel, and nearly a second one – or part of a third one in the case of Jonas. They would swap their unused gear on the Faire, exceptionally held on a Friday due to Easter Even.
Then finally get on with the scouting of the French sector after Easter. Jonas expected the Duke of Wellington to be disappointed about the delays, but he figured that they still had time. From what he understood, the assault would almost certainly come in early spring next year, maybe slightly earlier. That still left them plenty of time to level to a respectable tier four. It all depended on how fast the High Office could cram its Agni teams into the trunk.
And getting enabled for Argentmart as well after that. But the real time-limiter was the slowly regenerating crow triplet guardians back in Othary, and there was nothing anyone could do about it unless Cowen’s team had finally found some other passage beyond the completely impractical tier five they already knew about.
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“So, mace-tailed scorpions first?”
“Yes. But we also kill anything we come across for the experience, to be as complete as we can. I mean, I am half a level away from a Milestone, and I now have a new spell I need to improve as fast as possible.”
The rest of the team laughed as one.
“Rank allocated to the new spell. Let’s try this,” Jonas announced.
He’d gotten the last few points of experience just before reaching the last guardians, handing him his Milestone at level 26 in his current Profession. He’d previously planned to invest in his Fire Funnel to deal with packed enemies, but the new spell was far too powerful for someone with Adjustment V and artefacts to ignore.
The scorpion guardians were slowly ambling around their ruin, having yet to notice them.
Ruins Ruler
Level 69 elder
Health: 2993
Mind: 1142
Endurance: 1591
Aether: 1823
Ruins Consort
Level 74 elite
Health: 1963
Mind: 720
Endurance: 1761
Aether: 281
“Is it me, or is the couple more lopsided this time?”
“Think so. They’re still in the seventy range, so it’s only a minor adjustment,” Ira replied.
The two defenders positioned themselves quickly to intercept the two scorpions, and Ira launched his usual yell to announce the start of the fight.
Jonas immediately launched his first spell.
Elemental Spray does 119 damage (ice) to Ruins Ruler.
The spell looked more like blue-coloured light than the white streak that came when Jonas used Ice Dart. Jonas was surprised about the ice mention, though. He did have a +1% ice elemental damage from his core, but a +2% fire from the Doneri robe. But the “highest elemental damage” apparently considered ice best. So… the scorpions had some ice vulnerability, potentially. Or fire resistance. Maybe that was due to the desert environment.
Although, based on his prior calculations of estimated damage, that seemed very tiny. A couple of percentage points only. Still, it was cheating, as the spell adjusted itself even if Jonas didn’t know of the effect.
Ruins Scorpid × 2: 5538XP/6 contributors = 874XP.
“So, what do you think of it?” Ira asked.
“Interesting,” Jonas replied.
“Interesting. That’s all?” Alton laughed.
“Well, no. The weird adjustment between the two was surprising.”
“Yes, what was it? It was like blue light, then white when you fired on the consort?” Jonathan asked, curious.
“Apparently, the two have slightly different elemental affinities. It was the same damage amount overall, but the ruler was more vulnerable to ice, and the consort to air, of all things.”
“And it changes the colour?”
“It’s only a tiny percentage. Like 2 or 3 points. But yes, apparently, the spell simply switches on its own. Handy to know.”
“It only matters for you, though,” Laura pronounced.
“Who knows? Maybe in high tiers, your melee gets elemental attacks? And I get to tell you which one works better in advance?”
“It’s still cheating,” Guss pronounced wisely.
Black Iron Chainmail Leggings
Legs
Quality equipment
Requires: Level 62
Provides: +42 defence rating, AGI+7, +80 health
“Anyone?” Laura asked, brandishing the dark legs.
“Taking it,” Ira immediately replied.
Jonas waited until his friend had finished swapping out his leggings behind a small ruined wall before starting out in the direction of the next lair.
His last idea as they came out of the ruins was that they all absolutely needed at least a wooden Puppet. Even if you wore some light mundane clothing underneath, some equipment changes were awkward. An Instantaneous change would be much better for everyone. At least Laura had one.
“The treasure box is empty,” Jonathan announced.
“Wait, what?”
Jonas remembered now the location of the innocuous-looking treasure box at the entrance of the oasis, for which they needed to get the guardian to show up. But if Jonathan was saying it was missing…
“It’s there, but it doesn’t list anything inside at all.”
Laura immediately started, kicking the box when it refused to open.
“That’s a bit weird? It’s still locked,” she said.
“Remember Cowen said the treasure boxes relock themselves after a day or so. They probably refill much later. I mean, the box at Donerkal’s Plaza is still empty. Was, last time.”
“Does this mean… someone’s there?” Ira asked.
“I don’t see how. I mean, we’re very far from the colonial sector, far from England as well. There’s no tier two maximum connections mapped, so you need to cross multiple tier threes on the Great Line, or worse. Who would do that to go through all this just to come here? Loot is fairly normal,” Jonas replied.
“Well, maybe there’s a second trunk opening here? We’ve done all the known lairs, but we haven’t checked everything again,” Ira suggested.
Jonas frowned.
“How would they know about that box? I mean, unless there are hidden Professionals with Adjustment VI running around.”
“You think there might be others snatched in the London attack and dumped, only somewhere else?”
“That or people snatched when the Gates opened twenty years ago.”
Alton laughed, prompting looks from the rest of the team.
“If there were, they wouldn’t be with only tier two or three. With two decades of Labyrinth, they’d probably be tier nine or ten, maybe even higher. What would they do in a tier two zone like this?”
“So… mystery?”
“You know what? There are five islands in that oasis to check. Let’s see if they’re empty as well. Worst case is we just kill the creatures as they appear to be there,” Laura remarked.
They had barely crossed into the first lake island, after dispatching the variety of critters in the way, when Jonathan spotted the guardians.
“Chest normal, level 72 common.”
“So? No Professionals hunting around?” Ira asked.
“Sounds like. Maybe that first hidden guardian is a rare guardian, as the crows. It’s not always there,” Jonas mused.
The team contemplated the wrecked scorpions. They’d done the rounds based on Jonas’ itinerary, and they finally looped to their normal Outapis starting point. The treasure of those last guardians was disappointing, two common items instead of a single one at exceptional or at least quality ranking. Stuff that would end up being traded for beginning low levels before being sold outright to brokers.
“Nice zone, but we need more bags,” Laura announced after handing the items to Alton who still had enough room to keep those.
“That’s what you get when you do too many lairs in a row like the last time we were there. Adapted Team special problems,” Ira noted.
“It’s only early Wednesday, there’s over a week of lair running to do. With double the amount of loot,” she added.
Alton had a massive laugh, surprising everyone.
“And? When you get too much salvage, you stash all of it, then continue to mudlark.”
“Stash where? Leaving stuff around in a zone is risky. Critters tend to be attracted to items left without guard, that’s why you build permanent structures rather than camping areas in the higher tiers.”
“No. At the Bank. Guess who has more Fast Travel charge than the rest of us and would not be penalized as much if he does a supply drop?” the Solid Gouger said, tilting his head toward Jonas.
The entire team turned toward the Aethershaper.
“Hey. If I am too encumbered, I won’t even be able to Recall!” he said, half in horror.
“So what? You fail to use it, you drop one bag and try again,” Laura replied, smiling as she snatched his crown, replacing it with her spotted leather coif.
Before Jonas had more time to protest, she had swapped his belt and was shoving already one of her hammers in his hand. Her boots vanished, reappearing in her hands.
“Extra Strength can’t hurt. Swap your sandals and grab all those bags. We’ll run toward the Gate while you’re hauling all that to the Bank.”
Jonas felt like swearing as he finally reached the steps of the Bank in Gatepost, awkwardly shuffling the bags. Despite the extra boost of 43 Strength from Laura’s borrowed gear, he still had felt every yard crossed from the Recall Stone to the Bank.
Due to the time shift, it was just before dawn here, but the Bank never closed, Professionals having all kind of clock shifts between their zones and Grailburg.
“It will take some time before all of this is itemized. And you’re close to your storage limit, you may need to upgrade your team account,” the teller said, eyeing expertly the full bags dropped on the counter.
“Don’t bother, we’ll pull all of this back in a week,” he replied, feeling relieved at making it without spilling everything.
“Can’t. It’s the rules, every deposit must be properly itemized. If you don’t want to wait, that’s fine, you’ll get the list next the time you come, but it has to be done.”
She added, “Although if you intend to take all of that out at the same time, we’ll keep those packed together. It will make it easier to bring out. I’ll make a note on it.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Have a nice day. Or sleep, if that’s the time,” she replied.
Once outside, Jonas started to jog back toward the Gate clearing. Without all the encumbrance, he could do that. At least he should be able to make it there before the team reached the Gate.
Competing Mauler
(tier 5)
Required: 145 STR, 68 AGI, 68 STA
Provides:
+13 health/+27 endurance/+11 mind/+9 aether per level
+1 Milestone/11 levels
Competing Mauler Milestone: +12 STR, +57 CON, +4 FOC, 0.5 endurance per AGI
Skillset: Physical / Offence