We looted as much as we could on the first pass, focusing on the Caster, Captain, and the loot at their camp to get the highest level stuff first, then had people go in teams to grab the rest of it and bring it to the Adventurer’s Guild. Sure, the vast majority of it was vendor trash, but vendor trash adds up. Temur laid claim to the caster’s arcane gear, giving him a boost on fire magics that stacked with his inherent Dracon buff to them. After some back and forth, Khargol got the club from the Captain, which was distinctly better than his regular warrior’s sword, and we spread bows and arrows to everyone. Having more ranged options wasn’t something to pass up at this point.
Layala and I had a heart-to-heart about her brother Tom, and she needed some time to herself. The most important item we received, however, was a location- We now had the locations of the bandits’ main camp and could undertake the quest to take down Bandit Lord Kyron. One issue, though: We’d nearly lost that fight with just the bandits from last night. Sure, we hadn’t had an deaths, but we’d gotten damned close. Denise was a little bit shaken at the idea, “I mean, can’t we just move on?”
I sighed. The explanation wasn’t going to be something she wanted to hear, “This is the starting area, sis. We we go past that bridge, it all gets tougher from there. This is still the stuff meant for low-level, so what do you the Blackwood’s gonna look like?”
She shuddered, “And you’re still going?!”
Khargol thumped a first on the table, “Only way out is through.”
I nodded, but Denise had a point, “True, but Denise has a point. As we are now, the bandits in the main fortress are going to kill a lot of us. In a normal game sense, I’d still say to go for it, especially with the World First prize on the line, but here it’s too much risk.
“And yes, Denise, I’ll explain. MMOs have something called ‘World First’ achievements sometimes. It’s for the first time something gets done. Kyron is the first true boss of the game, so there’s an achievement for getting it. The achievements develop points that you can turn in for special gear, and the higher the difficulty of the achievement, the more points you get. A World First, by it’s nature, bags us a ton of points, and we might even get enough for a mount.”
Temur tapped a claw to get my attention, “XP-wise, we’re not getting much anymore on the rank and file bandits. That’s going to slow our progress.”
Denise gave a questioning look, and I launched into the next explanation, “The basic XP you need to level up an ability is 100 across. The issue is what you’re doing to get that XP. So for instance, how much XP did you get off the one bandit you killed? It would’ve gone into your sword skills, Strength, and Agility.”
She checked her Journal, “I got 15 XP on my sword strike, and... Ah, that’s bullcrap! I only like 1 XP on Strength, and 2 on Vigor!”
I waved a hand in acknowledgment, “And that is the problem. The better we get at what we’re doing, the less XP we’re actually getting, although, kind of ingenious system-wise. Most MMOs run into number issues and have to keep reconfiguring to keep the numbers from getting out of hand. Here, they got around that by making the XP set, but just altering the amount you get.”
Across the table, Temur chimed back in, “The problem is that our high attributes just won’t keep rising. We’d either have to go out solo to get around the party issue, or we’d have to start hunting stuff out of our CR- Challenge Rating, Denise. It’s from a different game, but the same principle applies here. It’s how we work out what’s a proper challenge based on who we have with us. Anything below a certain point, and we’re not gaining. Too high, and well...”
Something occurred to me as we kept explaining the basics to Denise, and I sort of just stared off into the middle distance for a moment. I’m not sure what was going on while I was carrying the thought, but when I came back to the scene Temur was laying out a roll of parchment in front of me and handed me a pen, “Math time?”
I nodded and took the pen, beginning to make notes as I spoke, “Okay, so the system decides how much XP we get based on what our attributes are. So my agility is high for the current area, and that lowers my XP rate in combat. My Charisma started out low, but with all the speechifying I’ve had to do along with the NPCs interactions, it’s been ratcheting it up starting at three, then slowing down as it got more into line with my Agility. Agility started at ten, the primary stat for Hunters and Vagabonds. But what if I lower my Agility and did training or combat with my Agility lowered?”
Temur was nodding, seeing where I was going, but Denise was still new, “I mean, wouldn’t that leave you where you started?”
I pointed to her, “Technically, but if we had a temp stat loss, it might be possible to drop the stat for a bit, then train it while it’s still low. The lowering ends, and we go back up. While it’s low, whatever abilities are attached to the core attribute should also be able to get XP based on it being lower level.”
“And how do we lower our stats like that?” Khargol was getting involved in the discussion, but everyone assembled was in rapt attention now.
I shrugged, “We poison ourselves.”
Denise’s head snapped around, “I’m sorry, we what now?!”
“A numbe of poisons in this game have attribute debuffs attached to them. So if we can recover a bunch of attribute poisons, we could catch ourselves with them, and lower our stats as low as possible, do what we need to do, and get back the lost stats when the poisoned effect ends. I mean, we’ll hit the wall again eventually, but that’s the tomorrow problem. We’ll need to guinea pig someone to make sure the theory holds out, ” I continued making my notes as I spoke and everyone crowded around the table."
Chrysta looked over the notes, “Well, I figure if we can get extra o’ the poison, sugar, we’ll be able to refine low-grade stuff. That’d let y’all do it again later.”
“There are several different poisons we can get access to fairly easily. The Trapdoor Spiders have a strength poison, so you can harvest the sacs for it. There are mushrooms that degrade Intellect and Will, and then there’s the drinking mechanic. Drinking heavily lowers both Vigor and Charisma as the expense of the nausea side-effect,” Sylvain stepped in, working through his realm of expertise.
Temur was paying attention to the notations themselves, “We’re going to need to assign supports to people doing this to make sure we can bail out of it if it goes too far.”
Not to be left out, Khargol stepped in, “How long do you think before they patch this exploit out?”
Layala chuckled, “What patch? Patching the game at this point would require resetting the server, and the devs can’t even get access.”
We’d kept going back and forth, and while Denise had provided the basis of the current plan, she was... less than thrilled with our big plan, “What the hell is wrong with all of you?!”
Everyone turned, and I mean, I get the issue but clearly, Denise had some thoughts on the subject, “So, what?! You’re all just gonna just starting doing poison like they’re jello shots? And how does get us out of the game? This plan’s insane.”
I sighed, “Denise... I get it. Outside of a video game, this sounds completely insane.”
She was pissed, “Oh, you think?! Why in the hell would that work?”
Turning away from the table, I regarded Denise more directly, “Let’s take a minute.”
There were nods all around, and the players broke up to get to work on what all we needed to proceed. Meanwhile, I motioned for my sister to follow me, and we headed out. I may not be the most emotionally conscious dude in the world, but it wasn’t hard to work out that Denise had issues she needed to vent about. So we went out for a walk, “Denise-”
She didn’t wait for me to get started, stopping in her tracks just as we were getting to the edge of town, “Why?! Why do you have to keep doing this?! You could’ve died last night! And now, here you are, figuring out some way to almost kill yourselves voluntarily so you can make the magic numbers up, and go risk your lives again to fight off some stupid bandit lord!”
The talk was coming sooner or later, but I’d kind of hoped it would be later, “Seriously, come with me,” I waved on with me as I picked up back on the walk, heading over to where a small watchtower stood, proceeding up so that we got a scenic overlook of the area. In the distance, we could see the bridge and the Blackwood beyond it, “When all this started, almost ten thousand players charged into that forest, called the Blackwood. These guys were beta testers, they’d played the game before release and figured they could use their knowledge and numbers to boss rush through. We got back thirty-six.”
I heard the breath expel sharply from her lungs, “And you want to go in there?”
I put my arms on the railing, leaning on it as I continued looking out, “What I want is to wake up and go get some IHOP with Rob. That’s not a choice, though. Yeah, maybe someone figures out a way to get us out, but let me ask you a question: How long can someone survive in a coma?”
My eyes shifted to look, and I saw the realization on her face, “We could all die just standing here,” She looked down, and I saw the tears forming, “But... that doesn’t mean you should be throwing life away, Luke.”
“I don’t talk about this a lot, but Chrysta’s wheelchair-bound. She got really sick as a child, and the side effects of that were her getting stuck in that wheelchair, and for awhile, she was fully blind. Now, she got a surgery for the sight, but the doctors haven’t worked out how to fix the damage that put her in the chair. So... how long does she have if it’s the sick and the old who are dying first?” My eyes set as I laid out the realities of our world, “I won’t let that happen, and if there’s even a one percent chance that getting through the end of this game holds some key to getting us out alive, I damn sure am going to take it.”
Denise met my eyes. The fear in them was so easy to see, but she knew when my mind was made up, “How do you even know this’ll work?”
I shrugged and forced a smile, “Because it’s a video game. It’s like... Monopoly. You remember, I used to buy up all the houses so no one else could build any? In the real world, there isn’t anything stopping someone from just building more houses, but in the game, if there aren’t houses in the bank, that’s it.
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“Unlike life, game rules are absolute. In the real world, you can be revived from death by CPR, but here, there’s no such thing. Once you HP hits zero, it’s over. Period. Out there, maybe you get better at something with repetition, maybe you don’t, and you don’t know how much better you get or how long it’ll take. Here, it’s all codified, litertally. So yeah, poison works in an exactly prescribed way, and that’s that. In this game, it lowers stats, while in others it just does regular damage, or does other debuffs. It’s just the way that these systems work, and we’re going to use them to get whatever advantages we can.”
She had no retort. This was far outside her wheelhouse, but a small question had been nagging at the back of my brain, “I’m curious about something, though. You bought the Limited Edition of the game. Why? You’re not a gamer.”
She closed her eyes for a bit, then chuckled sardonically, “When you left for college, we... drifted. I mean, we weren’t estranged really, but like, just life, y’know? We were so close before, and it felt like... like we’d lost something. I figured I could get the game, and maybe we’d have something to do together.”
I let out a quick breath, and turned to hug my sister, “That’s kinda awesome of you, but I get it if you want to go back to the city.”
Denise hugged me back, and didn’t say anything for minute, crying into my chest while I stood and kissed the top of her head. We stayed there for a bit, away from everyone so that so she could get it all out. Eventually, though, it was time to get back an we went back down the tower, and unfortunately, my inner nature came out, "You know, we could've just gone to Dave & Buster's, right?"
She laughed into my chest, and snorted, "Oh sure, now you tell me."
She was mostly quiet on the way back, until just before we reached the Adventurer’s Guild, “I’m not going back.”
I paused and turned, “It doesn’t get any easier from here. You sure you want to stay on this ride?”
She wiped her eyes and nodded, “Yeah. Like you said, one percent chance.”
There was nothing else to discuss. She was set, and the most I could do was make sure she was as prepared as possible. Back at the guild, Khargol was using his Calisthenics ability while looking like he wanted to puke. Chrysta and Sylvain were giving him a look of sympathy, but Temur was super excited, making notes as he saw us come in, “It’s working!”
The easiest one to test had been Vigor, since we just needed alcohol. With a tavern next door, it was simple enough to test. Khargol did lodge a slight objection, however, his words slurring, “The nausea’s a righ’ bith, tho’. Oh God.”
I chuckled, and Layala was just sitting in her corner shaking her head, “Y’know, you all really are just out of your minds.”
Moving across the room, I conferred with Temur on the numbers. The XP gain was skyrocketing. To do the test as best as they could, Khargol had drank until his Vigor hit one, the lowest the system would allow attributes to go. Drinking so much had both the nausea side effect, as well as the dump on Charisma, which is where I guessed the slurring was coming from. In the course of exercise, he was going up quickly, now at five Vigor with the effect still going, but it wasn’t just his Vigor that was low, “Hey Kahrgol, do your favorite speech of all time.”
“Really, man?” He wasn’t particularly enthused by the concept.
I nodded, “Really, it should help work on your Charisma and Speechcraft."
Khargol concentrated as best he could, trying to focus through the drunken stupor, “Ar’ ya strong ‘nough to hannle critix?
"It’s no’ the critic who counts- hurk- not th’man who poins out how... the strongman stumbles or where the... doer o’ deeds could’ve done better.”
As we watched him continue, his book open beneath him, we could see the Charisma rising up, the numebrs rising steadily. It was fully working, and as it improved, his general tenor of speech improved as well, the slurring receding as Khargol continued, “The credit belongs to the man who is acshually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat und blood, who strives vallantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings,” As he buoyed himself in the quote, his movements in the exercise all got more on point, focusing his will around what he took as a central ideal, “who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at his best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
I remembered back to freshman year, when we’d met as roommates. The quote was from a plaque one of his teachers had woodburned for him. It was done on cheap pine board, and it wasn’t exactly the best piece, but you’d have thought that it was the greatest art of the modern age the way he looked at it when he hung it. I’d never heard the quote before I met him, but he explained, at length, many times, every time someone looked in its general direction for the first time. The quote was from Theodore Roosevelt, before he’d achieved the presidency. Khargol’s parents might be total shitbags, but for the most dudebro amongst us, it was one art teacher that had managed to overcome the damage they’d done.
Denise just stared at the whole affair incredulously until the effects ended. Although outwardly there was no physical change to him, the stat effects were pronouced. He’d nearly doubled his vigor, and more than doubled his Charisma by going through a chain of inspirational quotes, some hisorical, some from movies and even anime. One of the reasons we’d gotten behind him as a leader outside of Valoria Saga was that he was like an inspiriational quote machine. He didn’t care what your pursuits were, he existed to give everyone the encouragement he’d never gotten. Sure, he was straight, but he would wingman Temur without hesitation... almost too much. Like, think incredibly enthusiastic mother who desparately wanted grandkids. He could be really dense at times, but he was all about the squad.
Now that we knew our little plan to abuse the XP system worked, it was time to scale it. We would start out with the Supports sitting it out to help manage side-effects, and just make sure we didn’t end up actually killing ourselves. Prep work was required, however. A full band of us went out into the surrounding areas, taking the spider culling quest to go rack up mats. Temur, Chrysta, and Sylvain focused on getting us a mats list, and off we went. It was also good experience for Denise, getting her more used to the hunting aspects of the game without having to make her swing on more human opponents. It wasn’t until we were out there that I realized she’d gone full omni-gatherer, and learned through consecutive fistbumps how desperately we’d needed someone to commit to the path. She didn’t quite get what was happening, “Um, I mean, is it really that important?”
“Oh, you have no idea! Upside, you might become one of the richest people on the server,” I said, giving her my own fistbump. She nodded as she took that bit of knowledge on board.
The gathering grind ramped up. We had full inventory loads of poison sacs, mushrooms, really just any debuff items when Denise mentioned that we should also get whatever stuff we needed for the anti-toxins, and so we kept going. Everyone in Rosewater spent the day running around getting the various materials we needed while our crafters got to work on the load of items. Even alcohols were craftable, we just needed the components. Beers and wines were the easiest ingredients-wise. Sure, in real life, it would take months to years, expensive equipment and careful monitoring to make alcohol in any sort of bulk, but in video game terms, it wasn’t that difficult: Get wheat, hops, and sugar for the beer. For the bottles, we needed glass and cork, which was just a matter of hitting up sand deposits and trees for the cork, along with a furnace to work from for the glass. Brewers would make the alcohol, with Jewelers handling the creation of the glass bottles. Harvesting got us the wheat and hops.
Basic Brewing led into Alchemy, while Harvesting led toward the Farming job. The side effect of all this work was building up a substantial amount of coin from selling off failed scrap, as well as parts of stuff that we didn’t need. Weavers laid claim to the spider silk and quickly, we were starting to get into power-leveling our Gathering and Crafting jobs. The process for power-leveling broke down pretty easily. For Gathering, you wanted to pick whichever item in the relevant job arena was the easiest to mine initially, because it also gave a higher chance of getting higher quality ingredients, which gave bonus XP, even more if you could chain together high-quality gathers.
Crafting, meanwhile, was a matter of understanding how your abilities played into each other. You could just crank out basic gear with remarkably little effort, but if you learned the interplay of abilities, you could massively spike your XP gain by making higher quality gear on the regular. Improve your tools, and you could increase your chance at higher grade equipment. There were different grades of mats and gear, with limits. Basic grey gear with common. The common poison sac would decrease your Strength by only a single point, while the common grade of poison made from it would be a two-point reduction.
The next tier up was Uncommon, with green text. It would start from a two-point reduction for the sac, upgrading to a four-point reduction. The best we could possibly do for now was Rare tier, with blue text. It was the hard limit for what could be produced or gained from the area drops, and even at the upper runs of our Gathering abilities, it was difficult to get to. Crafting had a little more wiggle room on this, since it was as much about skill as it was about the materials themselves. Assuming you had Best in Slot gear for Crafting, a decent workshop space, and knew how to chain your abilities, crafting blues could eventually become the default rather than a rare chance.
Even with blues, there were further limitations. A level ten Rare was still going to be limited by its level. Later, higher-level gear could be better even if it was lower in grade, so a level twenty green might be better than that level ten blue. The trade-off was abilities. Common equipment had no side abilities. A common piece of leather armor was just that, it gave some basic armoring, and nothing else. A green leather armor had somewhat higher protection, but it might grant a bonus to HP, damage, or something. That same leather armor in blue would allow for two bonuses. Aside from the general boosts, there was also Inscribed gear that could be found, or it could be Crafted later.
For instance, the Goblin helm I had was a Rare Inscribed piece. The Inscribed enchantment gave me low-light vision, and it granted boosts to perception, and aim. They weren’t huge bonuses, and it wasn’t part of Set, but they were still a notable improvement over what I would be able to do otherwise. My hide armor from that fight was decently protective, and gave a bonus to the armor reduction on damage.
So now, we had a mission: Poison ourselves and get our stats up. Yes, it was every bit as ridiculous as it sounded, but we’re gamers, it still didn’t rate in the top ten weirdest things we’ve done for power in a game. We actually had to move out of Rosewater to do this because the NPCs kept trying to “help” us get healed of the conditions. They meant well, but it was setting us back.
Khargol was certainly right about the nausea bit. It warped and throbbed around me, distorting my entire field. The only thing stopping people from making a huge mess was that there was no actual vomiting in the game. Instead, we all switched out in groups, with our four Supports watching over us as we pushed through. We focused the poisoning based on job, so agility-types like Hunters and Vagabond were doing shrooms, Warriors split between spider venom and booze. Eventually, everyone would be hitting the booze since Vigor was the main stat for Hit Points. The more interesting groups were the casters. Arcanists and Acolytes were both based quite a bit around Intellect and Will. We essentially had them doing things like long division, answering lore questions about Valoria, writing things out, and otherwise pushing them while having them stay focused.
Even Denise finally got into the act, seeing that everyone was jumping in on it. Temur and Sylvain worked in tandem to take notes, switching out so that each could get their workouts in. Eventually, we would progress the challenge to increase yet more XP, taking groups out to hunt to take advantage of higher combat and quest XP. These were low-level quests that required little real capability, basic kill quests, gathering, even escort missions running back and forth to Farrelston. We made sure to have full parties for the escort and combat missions just for safety's sake. We spent the rest of the day, and the next just dong this insane cycle of self-poisoning, exercising, and questing. New Jobs unlocked for everyone, and we all got fully into our secondary jobs. Khargol became a Gladiator, his fellow tank Umbaar unlocking Page on track to go for Knight and eventual Paladin. Layala grabbed Leywoman, on track for becoming a Priest. Temur upgraded into Sorcerer, and Denise took the Duelist job. Chrysta and Sylvain focused more on their crafting jobs, with Chrysta officially becoming a Smith on track to take specialties, while Sylvain maxed out his herbalism in-line with becoming a full alchemist. Temur did work on his own crafting, unlocking basic Inscribing.
Everyone got as geared up as we could on the back of the various crafters and quests. As far as the technical points are concerned, we were about the best we could be for the area. Only one objective remained: Assaulting the Bandit Lord Kyron's Fortress.