As soon as Ryan walked out of the barn he spotted John sitting on a camp chair and tending to the kettle that was merrily bubbling on the small fire that someone must have started during the night. The aromatic smell of coffee suffused the still morning air and was a powerful attractant. Because Ryan wanted to talk to John anyway he approached and, without an ounce of shame, grabbed an empty cup and settled into the empty camp chair next to John.
“Morning. Care to share?” Ryan asked the Spymaster.
“Sure. You can pour for yourself though. I’m busy.” John replied.
“All you’re doing is poking the fire with a stick.” Ryan objected half-heartedly.
“I’m optimising heat distribution to the kettle.”
Ryan couldn’t come up with a witty remark and instead of further delaying his gratification poured himself a cup of treacly brew. Silently sitting beside John as he nursed his cup he observed the comings and goings of the Guild as they got started with a busy day. He enjoyed the short reprieve before John interrupted him. “Don’t you have stuff to do?”
“Nothing immediate, but I wanted to ask you some questions.” Ryan replied. “First: As far as I understand it our plan is to set up base here and clear the surrounding area to get strong enough until we can face Ou Baas. When do you think that might be?”
“Difficult to say. I’d suggest waiting till our core combat teams have reached Level 30. Carmen has been volun-told to make a lot of ammunition for all our guns as a force equaliser so we should be able to take him. As to when. Depends how fast we can level here.” John explained.
“Sheesh. That’s going to take forever.”
“Not really. I suspect you haven’t identified your brother recently? He’s Level 23 and knocking on 24.” John calmly countered.
“When did that happen?” Ryan was somewhat surprised.
Gleefully John replied. “While you were on your scouting expedition. Actually, he’s not our highest level anymore.”
“Who is?” Ryan really hated having to drag the information out of John who seemed to enjoy releasing it only piece by piece.
“Stephen.”
“The Runesmith? How’d he get so high?” Ryan couldn’t wrap his head around how that could have happened and his perplexed tone reflected that to John’s obvious amusement.
“Well…” John dragged out the answer, “seems as if the System hasn’t been entirely forthright with us. People that chose a Crafting class, mind you, not a profession, can earn experience by innovating on their knowledge and successfully implementing new ideas in their craft. They also earn slight amounts of experience when they craft something.”
“Holy shit. That’s huge. This changes everything. They don’t have to risk combat to get stronger anymore.”
“It’s not that great of a deal.” John demurred. “At least short term. They still need to know how to protect themselves and even assist with bigger threats. But yeah, longer term that does mean we can devote more resources or experience to our member’s specialised in combat.”
“So how’d Stephen get so many levels?” Ryan was curious.
“He figured out that the Runes are instructions that program matter on an atomic or maybe even subatomic level. Basically, he’s able to transmute materials to a certain extent. Don’t ask me how or why, its way above my head. You should talk to him later if you need to know more. Safe to say, he’s increased the efficiency of our solar panels to above 70%, underlined them with a thermobaric material and converted our batteries to a solid state. Actually, there's a lot more things he’s been playing with but he’s constantly out of Energy. According to him rune work is hugely draining.”
Ryan considered the implications for a moment and then realised that Stephen was now the most valuable member of their Guild. Single-handedly he gave them a massive edge and if he could spread the knowledge they’d be able to defend against far greater threats than before. Ryan was brimming with ideas on how to apply Stephen’s Skills to his weaponry and decided he’d definitely talk to him later. Maybe assist him by powering a few of the more energy intensive inscriptions in trade for improving his weaponry. His bow definitely needed to be upgraded again. Lost in a daydream of potential applications he didn’t hear John ask him a question.
“Huh, come again?”
“I asked what else you wanted to question me about. As far as I followed where still on your first question.” John repeated.
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“Right…” Ryan had to take a moment to bring his thoughts back on topic. “Second: I noticed my Stats had decreased. I assume you’re aware of that being possible. How common is that?”
“More common than you would think.” John replied, “In fact, it’s weird that you only picked up on that now as it happened several times during your training regime when we pushed a bit too far. Others had it happen at fairly regular intervals as well, mostly when they were hungry or thirsty. It’s probably because the Stat is hovering around a breakpoint and jumps up or down by one depending on physical condition.” John answered, comprehensive as always.
“No, one of my Stats dropped by two points.” Ryan corrected.
“Probably a severe case of physical impairment then. After effects of your run in with the mopane flies.”
“Likely, yes. But you said they generally recover.”
“Sure. But this leads me to believe that your Stats can deteriorate long-term if you fail to ‘maintain’ them, so to speak. Aging will probably also reduce your Stats.” John muttered.
“I really don’t want to think on that now.” Ryan shot back, “Anyway, third question: Have you figured out what leashed means when designating a beast?”
“Yeah, I actually had to buy that information from an information broker through the system store. I’ll quote it for you: In the rare event that a beast massively out-levels its primary environment the system has several means of recourse to constrain its impact on the world at large. A monster designated as ‘leashed’ cannot roam freely but has been constrained to an area with a radius of one kilometre. This concludes the information purchased. For further information on methods of restraint please make additional payment.” John paused for a moment, “I was actually tempted to purchase more information but managed to restrain that treacherous impulse.”
“So basically it cannot leave town?” Ryan confirmed.
“Yeah, but we need to figure out exactly where the boundary is if we want to deal with Ou Baas. That’ll be your job once we’re ready.”
“I can emphatically state that I am not looking forward to it.” Ryan raised his voice in mock anger.
“I can emphasise.” John replied drily.
PING!
The insistent tone of a System notification interrupted their conversation. John and Ryan exchanged a glance and Ryan pulled up the minimised notification to confirm whether the sound meant what he suspected.
Local System Notification! Please stand by for System Notification by System Administration in 30 seconds. Minimising this notification will defer the System Notification until called up.
30…
29…
“Well shit. Wonder what’s it this time?” John quipped as the two patiently waited out the cooldown. What activity had been going around in their immediate vicinity had ground to an abrupt halt as everyone waited to see what the System had in store for them this time.
3…
2…
1…
Ascension countdown initiated. Player Han, Lee has initiated the Ascension protocol. First wave of Ascension will commence after 100 planetary rotations and last 1 planetary rotation. Subsequent waves will follow every 100 planetary rotations. Players are reminded that they should activate Ascension at their nearest Ascension Obelisk once they have reached Level 25 if they wish to ascend in the upcoming wave.
“Well fuck. That changes things.” John swore before yelling, “William! Lizzy! Alexis! Council meeting!”
Ryan already spotted Lizzy heading in their direction and, not willing to sit through another meeting, rose from his chair. “Looks like things are going to get busy, busy, busy. I’ll get started on improving my weapons. Lots of levelling to do. Safe to assume we want to ride up on the first wave.” he said to an oblivious John as he speedily made his exit, heading in any direction that was away from a quickly approaching Lizzy before she could rope him into one of her schemes. He had stuff to do.
As he headed off, looking for Stephen, he observed the activity that had resumed after the notification and wasn’t sure if he imagined the more frantic pace or whether his perspective was skewed as a result of his own need to now get things done quickly.
After bothering a few guild mates, half of which were new to him, asking for Stephen’s location he got directed to the workshop at the back of the barn. The Runesmith, Mike and Carmen were animatedly discussing something that seemed to have them immensely excited when Ryan entered the room. Ryan paused once he was through the doorway as he caught the tail-end of Stephen’s latest statement. “…it’s not an alloy. It’s an organically forged matrix of steel, titanium aluminide and tungsten carbide. I tell you, that bloody porcupine could transmute metals. Where else would it have gotten its hands on stuff like this. It’s been chewing through half the steel in the barn.”
Ryan gathered that the trio of smiths was discussing the veritable mountain of shiny quills that had been haphazardly stacked in a corner of the workshop. He knew what steel and tungsten carbide where but hadn’t heard of titanium aluminide before. A vague sense told him that it was a material with a fairly high tensile and yield strength and he realised that it was his Metallurgy Skill providing him with that nugget of knowledge.
“Hey guys…” Ryan interrupted their conversation a second later. “I need to bother Stephen. Stephen, you got a moment?”
‘Sure Ryan. You need something?” Stephen was clearly not particularly interested in helping Ryan at the moments so Ryan changed what he had planned to say.
“Actually, I need help with making a new bow and wondered if you’d be willing to schedule a time. Mike, I could use your help too. If it’s not a problem we can discuss it tonight and get working on it over the next few days.”
“Sure.” Mike answered instead of Stephen, who was absently fondling one of the quills, before Mike nudged his shoulder and turned to address the Runesmith. “In fact, I think we should try to forge it out of some quills. Your arrows too, the amount of power you’ll be putting out will need strong materials and I saw some of your arrows shattering yesterday.”
Stephen just acknowledged with a grunted “Fine by me.” before he resumed intently studying the material in his hands while Ryan quickly left the workshop feeling how unwelcome his intrusion had actually been.
Ryan mentally nudged Fury, then asked the lioness whether she would like to accompany him on a scout and hunt of the area. Fury assented and, with that cleared, Ryan headed to the barn to get his gear so they could get started on catching up in levels.