Chapter 5
A brief rundown on the five spells that are available from the Ancient’s locations.
The first spells are in order of where and how you can learn them:
They actually have different names, but that is what everyone calls the five spells you can learn. When we are set to initially come to this first lair of the Ancients we get the Bolt spell and by becoming proficient enough in its casting then your eyes change color slightly from a pale sickly yellow to a slightly more vibrant yellow. That change allows you to get into a second base once a retinal scan is completed on you, where you learn of Account Creation. Only then do you realize that you can only get so far at that Ancient base, and that you have to come back here, register yourself with the Account Creation spell, then once again prove yourself with you Bolt casting proficiency. Once that happens your eyes are changed color to a sun-type yellow color. Where you go out learn the Break In spell from a third base, which you come back here to practice with again, showing your proficiency once more. Thereby unlocking the final brightest golden yellow color of eyes.
After that you go out Break In to a few sites, learning more lore, finding out more spell components that you have to take back here and work on your spell work. Then Finally you break into site 8, where you learn of Factory Reset, where you can go to bases that are hostile or that say you have already been there and reset them so they let you back in during a storm. See each base was only meant to be used once by the Ancients, then they were to learn the knowledge and continue on. Basically making it almost impossible to be proficient on any of these spells on your first time through. This Factory Reset spell was a way for the developers to let players come back and reuse the older facilities, so long as they of course kept Karen in their party.
The final spell Disrupt Field was for people that messed up on their Break In attempts, and needed to reset specific bases to get the spell, or eye increase needed to change your eye color to a more appealing color other than the sickly yellows.
With the Disrupt Field cast, the only spell besides Bolt to have any real impact on the outside world, as Disrupt Field is the only way to forcefully expel rogues, Illusions, and other forms of deception in a vast field. Making Karen very important for team safety at later levels when assassins will come out constantly to try to capture you.
The only problem, is that these spells are all expensive to cast. Even with the spells only costing a tier lower than normal, I feel almost completely drained by casting my one Disrupt Field.
Still it was worth it, as all the hostility that had been focused on me a moment ago is now gone. I could leave and come back when I was stronger, but that wouldn’t be ideal. See I know that inside the facility there are food stabilizers that I can get and find that will keep me at a healthy plump state, that will allow my bloodline properties to double. I’ll still be fat, but my fat will count for two percent extra mana per percentage of body fat I have. Meaning that after I get in, I will get the mana reserves I need to also never have to lie in a field and desperately wait for my mana to recharge.
Fuzzy brain.
It’s so odd feeling the direct effect of mana fatigue on my brain. I’ve heard about it, read about it, the developers even tried to work it into the first body suits, basically they would consistently try to irritate the brain by constricting blood, but that was both a health hazard and often ended up lasting longer than the actual effect happened. Instead, the developers went with a hazy vision to show mana fatigue.
While I can’t see the haze in my vision, I can safely say that I feel the massive headache from the spell.
Then smiling to myself, I realize that despite the pain, “this is so cool.”
Finally after an hour or more of lying there, my Regeneration did its work fully healing my broken left wrist. With the wrist now healed, I felt good enough to be able to start crawling forward, as I wanted to be slightly closer to the target zone, while still remaining out of blast range in case I got spotted by the sensors.
Fortunately for me, either the sensors were covered by layers of dirt, or were otherwise inoperable as I wasn’t noticed crawling ever so slowly up to the berm. Then once I was at a good enough distance I stopped, not wanting to ruin this chance.
So I waited, going over different things I could do here.
“Oh that’s right,” I said to myself as I remembered something else about the Account Creation spell, namely that it let all the players see their attributes again. I remember because it was a free way to continually get romantic points from the entourage members for free. Basically we would come here, I would create accounts for each member, then have the accounts get displayed.
I always thought this was a weird feature in the game, as you the player were always able to see all of the vitals and statistics of each member of your party. So to see the party members getting excited about what you could do naturally was always entertaining. Though now, I could see the appeal of this feature as it had been over a day now and I could tell that I had already increased. Or maybe I was just getting better at moving around as Karen, honestly it was hard to tell. Still, I was now even more excited than before about getting in, and spending a few months in here training. Yes, months, as there are food processors, clothing outfits.
“Oh wait, I get the skintight future stretchy body suit?” I say remembering how each member of the party that a specialty suit had made for them. The suit did little more than allow romantic scenes where the normal royal attire that everyone, but Karen wore get ripped or torn away and would show off the natural curves and muscles of the party members.
Not going to lie, the skintight body suits was a huge selling point on me initially trying out the Ancient storyline, at least originally.
As fun as it was to have everyone naked for a scene, the game had a game over if you had a complete clothing wipe out, the idea being that so long as one member had clothing, they could survive a quick trip to a town to get food for others. Also, the other members of the party collapsed into embarrassed balls if their clothing became too revealing, ultimately making them combat ineffective. Thus the body suits that always regenerated was a huge hit, and good reason to explore the world.
All of these thoughts come to me, until finally I feel well enough to undo my mistake.
Focusing, I cast Beginner’s Far Vision on the control panel that I wish to access. Then pausing a second for the one point of mana I used on the vision spell to replenish, I wait. Then I pause as everything seems to calm down and slow for a moment, before I burst into action.
With that I see the rigid machines that had been on guard, suddenly slump over as they are getting rebooted. Had I been logged in, via anything other than hard mode I would see a timer appear. No wait, I should still see the timer even in hard mode, at least that is the thought I have, but I am already up and running towards the shelter as I don’t have much time left before the restart. I am surprised that I dispelled Beginner’s Far Vision almost reflexively once I had confirmation of my spell being effective. This is odd as normally I at least have to deselect the icon, but since there are no icons it felt more intuitive to just dismiss the spell entirely. Still focus, the cool ways that the world has been altered to fit this playthrough are not a distraction you can have with yourself right now.
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Running forward I can feel the world spin slightly around me as I am already nearing the limits of mana fatigue. Fortunately though, despite the uneven terrain, there is a relatively easy path to travel forward, which is when I find myself at the access panel. Once at the panel I cast spell number three, probably one of the most annoying ones at first, at least the spell that is the most annoying for fans that just want to cast a spell and be done with it, as this one is a puzzle spell.
I cast Break In, and instantly the panel drops revealing circuits and cards. The cards and circuits are currently in a locked position. Seeing them, I can’t help but smile slightly as the puzzle start is the exact same as every other play through I have had thus far, which hopefully means the unlock sequence is also the same.
With that thought in mind, I begin working, both hands working in unison. I pull out components that need to be unplugged first, as the wires prevent the chips from being moved, but I can’t let the wires drop willy-nilly otherwise they will get lost. As such I use my non-dominant right hand to hold up the wires in a specific pattern, while my left hand goes to work quickly grabbing twisting and inserting the cards in their correct pattern. Then once the cards are in place showing a rising sun, at least that is what I call the image as they are all displayed around a circle that also needs to be placed. I then go about placing the cords in the correct pattern. Finally, I take the last cord and not knowing how much time is still left on the whole place being disabled I insert the cord and thrum.
I exhale as the machine comes to life as the wires begin cycling energy throughout the piece, lighting up the different slender chips that I inserted. Pieces that resemble rays of the sun.
Then with a flourish the access panel pops up into position, signifying that I had in fact completed a selection. Not that I made the correct selection, but that a selection had been made and it was a semi-valid formation.
Now the code would be taken and analyzed, making sure this code wasn’t confused for the code of any other base.
Then an agonizingly long second later, I felt an intense heat once again fill me, as I knew I was being scanned. I made sure to keep my eyes open, wondering fi there was some sort of laser eye reader, but if there was, I didn’t know.
Instead, all I could do was hear the whirring of gears from inside.
At this, I smile remembering how in all the scenes where we have party members coming, this is the time when they all start freaking out wondering, “uh are we about to die?”
Chuckle.
I’m laughing, because this is exactly what I am thinking at this very moment, but somehow imagining the frightened looks of the princes and how they would always quiver and look like they were trying to decide if they should run away or pee their pants made it so I could stand here a little more confidently.
This is also the second or third time that I have dealt with intense stress by laughing. Unfortunately, I wonder if this is a sign that this playthrough is a little too much. Logically, I still want to log out, but until I get to a save point, which should be right inside here, I am stuck doing everything in my power to progress. That is part of why I don’t run away right now.
I also knew that if I tried to run, the automatic defenses would mow me down before I got to the tree line, as such, this was my only option.
Finally, after a long time, the code is accepted, and the giant double metal doors finally begin to open.
With that, I get my first glimpse of the newly refined lair of the Ancients and I can’t help but let out a gasp as I look and see everything.
Sparkle.
There are so many lights of different colors that are pulsing with a vibrant glare that is almost impossible to imagine let alone describe. The floor is one of those light up floors that recognizes weight by color. Dark Orange, yes my color would be the same as the males of the party, because I’m fat. Princess Claudia’s tiles would be a bright orange showing that she was lighter. Just another subtle dig at the fat girl.
Though apparently there was a reason for this, as the Ancients had an intense food shortage for a while, as such they valued women like me, I mean like Karen.
Getting in, I go to the access control panel, which is a giant silver triangle that seems to erupt from the myriad of glowing weight tiles and that is where I use my fifth and final spell. Raising up my left hand, I place it on the panel and give a perfect casting of the spell.
As I cast the spell, I feel the console before me come to life as it scans my entire body through my hand as a trickle of warm light and heat flows through my hand down my arm and into my body, causing parts of me to come alive with a tingling sensation. Idly I wonder if this is what being exposed to radiation feels like. Then realizing I would rather not know that answer, I drop that line of thoughts and try to continue with this new process.
New User Identified. Please Enter a name:
With this I am given the chance to completely rename the character I play. While I can’t actually change the first name, I can finally give myself a last name that will finally set me as a member of royalty.
Smiling, I forgot about this feature.
Supposedly this was an oversight by the developers who thought it would be cool to let you change your name. While Karen was a must to have, the developers let you customize your play by the Karen in your party, thus everyone could give Karen a name. Also, the last name was one of the few selling points on creating an account, that and the free reputation gains with the paramours was also a bonus. But the one thing that was not realized is that by giving Karen a last name in this way, Karen would be elevated to the rank of a minor noble. At which point, depending on how you treated Karen up to this point, she would either be your best friend, or your worst nightmare.
Many people had nightmare scenarios where abused Karens went wild with revenge, breaking up relationships and ultimately destroying the Von’Roseblades.
Seeing this screen now, before she was bound as a Revenant was a boon as it meant that from here on out, I could be a free entity, not bound by anyone whose lands I fell under.
With this, I smiled as I knew there was some other reason why I came to this death trap first, before going anywhere else. Now that I remembered this key point, I smiled as I entered a last name to remind me of who I truly was.
Name Accepted.
Would you like to view your status?
Seeing that message I smiled as I was ready to hit this save point and move on.
“Yes.” I said, almost excited to see how I might have advanced.
Name: Karen Laurain Age: 14 Gender: Female
Magical Affinities: Current Rating Maximum Rating Primary: Combat Support F S Secondary: Spatial F S Tertiary:
Attributes Current Rating Maximum Rating Strength: E- B Dexterity: C B Stamina: D B Perception: D+ A Intelligence: B S Magic: B S
Abilities: Death Sight – Can see and talk to spirits (might cause minor problems when interacting with people).
Bloodline: Yes, awakened Survivor’s Bloodline: Your body is exceptionally good at taking every ounce of resource from food converting it to fat, that can later be turned into extra mana. Every percentage of bodyfat increases your overall mana pool by an equivalent percentage.
Perfect Combat Support Caster: You managed to cast a perfect form of a Combat Support spell. All Combat Support related spells are cast as if one Rank Higher. Perfect Spatial Caster: You managed to cast a perfect form of a Spatial spell. All Spatial related spells are cast as if one Rank Higher. Perfect
Skills: Ranking Dual Casting E Mana Exertion Casting E- Mana Circulation E- Sneak Attack E- Focused Casting E Camouflage F
Seeing the changes, I couldn’t help but smile slightly. These were the easiest advancements, but they were still good to be acknowledged right off the start. Honestly, I couldn’t help but feel relatively good with myself. All my mana based skills went by at least a quarter going from Fs to E- or higher.
Even my Strength and Perception went up by a quarter ranking, along with my
Still this is good enough for me, which is why I stand and wait for the next prompt. A prompt that does not seem to appear.
Which is when I try to do it by voice command, “logout!”
Nothing.