Walking home without any speed enhancement was excruciatingly slow. Since any skill or magic not needed for basic survival was tied to a player’s gear, most of Ape’s abilities were currently greyed out, unavailable. Without any Orbs on hand to replace what he’d lost, he couldn’t even summon his mount to make the trek back home. He’d respawned in a small village not far from the Keep, and though he only needed to travel for a half an hour or so to reach the Gates of Chtonia, the walk was one of shame.
His avatar’s segmented armor looked like an insect drained of all color, or a mech suit painted only in primer. He’d get his custom colors and textures back when he reslotted Orbs into each piece. Ape tried to chin up. He had plenty of Orbs with which to recover, that wasn’t the problem. He’d just had high hopes for this excursion, and to come so close, and then fail because of someone else, it was just depressing.
Daydreaming of failure caused him to wander off the dark dirt road slightly, and he accidentally aggroed a Chirachnid that was in the process of laying eggs in its nest. The thing charged, eight legs skittering on rocky ground, lion’s face roaring. The monster looked worse than it really was - just another C5 mob like the Skeleton Patrollers. Ape drew his Silver Spear and let it extend with a chink chink chink chink, swiped at the Chirachnid with its blade, and reduced the nasty thing to loot.
Critical! 723, the luminous orange numbers read.
“Huh,” he breathed out loud, watching a small Orb the color of green apple candy roll away from the spider’s corpse. He hadn’t seen a any peridot in almost a year, much less a Polished Peridot, already refined. It wasn’t that peridot was rare - he’d simply grown out of such low-level Orbs months before. He picked it up. The spherical surface was rough compared to Sintari’s work.
Ape tapped the Orb - 261/450 units. That much peridot wouldn’t be enough to summon his mount, but better to have one Orb than none, so he slotted it into his Enchanted Leather Moccasins. The footwear turned brown again, and its network of Ley Wires lit up with the green of the Peridot. Now he could move a little faster.
When he reached Annum, the old city built around the Gates of Chtonia, it was as empty as ever - two noobs running a quest line, Smart NPCs peddling their wares at the various shops and hollering at the few passersby.
Ape made his way into the heart of the city where the big Gate stood, tapped the stone blocks of its high arch, and selected his teleport destination, then stepped through as the Gate powered up.
He emerged from null space into Xelt, a large city built on the side of a mountain in the region of Eolis. Cities like this were safe zones, and Ape sighed in relief as he let his guard down. Eolis was a vibrant land, basking in eternal late Spring. It was nice to be among green, growing things, and back out in the sunlight, which radiated its warmth through his feedback gear.
Ape strolled down cobblestone paths toward the east end of town. Most of Xelt’s buildings were made of large limestone blocks, with wood-framed roofs and shingles of bluish clay. A lot of the city’s real estate was dedicated to player housing and shops, and one could spot these easily by the shining Ley Wires embedded into the seams between stone blocks. Xelt’s economy was healthy, and almost all of the Player Owned Structures were lit up and occupied.
Sintari had her POS in the foundries district. He hadn’t told her he was coming to visit, but he knew she’d be hard at work still, and wouldn’t mind if he popped in.
Ape admired the advanced particle simulation as the countless foundries of Xelt belched out black smoke that stained the entire district with soot. Players with NasalJet gear would smell the acrid stench, which didn’t sound too great to Ape, but he couldn’t afford that kind of gear anyway.
The Wires of Sintari’s home shone more vibrantly than any other in the neighborhood, though the architecture of the place was Xelt standard; she hadn’t customized it. The enhanced brightness had to do with the massive bonuses in capacity and output her Orbs received from her status as a Master Refiner and Sculptor.
Ape knocked on her front door and waited patiently. Even for a friend, she wouldn’t put down whatever she was working on until she came to a stopping point.
Sintari was actually on the Foxhole payroll, in a way. Though NPCs had evolved greatly since the old days, integrating the latest in chatbot tech and constantly improving AI, having human players willing to dedicate their days to providing content for other players was invaluable. Sintari was talented enough that this had become a full time job for her.
Ape reclined on the steps leading up to Sintari’s door while he waited, and she finally answered after several minutes.
“Hey CJ,” she said, using his irl initials. “Come on in.”
The front room, and in fact most of Sintari’s place, was dedicated to her craft. For someone so meticulous about her work, she seemed pretty sloppy, with stacks of materials, sketches, and blueprints littering every nook and cranny, arranged in no discernable order. Somewhere in the back of the house was a bed she actually slept in when running refining jobs, so she could hear the job completion notifications and not have to set timers irl. The bed was the only surface not covered with the trappings of her trade.
“You in a hurry?” she asked. He shook his head no. “Cool, let me finish up then, you can hang around.”
Ape watched as Sintari went back to work. She had one of the coolest avatars he’d ever seen. Naturally the female mesh was beautiful, modelled to imitate a tall Scandinavian woman with a lithe form. She’d dyed the hair red and had it pulled back in four rows of braids. It was both amusing and strangely attractive that the avatar’s form was largely hidden by leather straps and pouches and belts, laden with tools and Orbs. She looked every bit the Master Sculptor.
Sintari drew her Zbrush from its sheath and cycled through its optional tips to the one she wanted. The brush would allow her to alter an object’s mesh to change its appearance. In the case of Orbs, a complicated Artistic AI would determine dynamically if the end result was a net improvement in aesthetic quality, and adjust the Orb’s stats accordingly. On her work table was a small Levitation Stand with the Orb she was currently sculpting suspended in the air above it. The small mass of Rhodium… Wait, Rhodium! He’d never even seen it outside auction posts. His friend was finishing the finer details of a murderous-looking lion, roaring at some unseen threat.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“That’s a job right? You didn’t just buy some Rhodium,” Ape asked.
Sintari nodded absently. She made most of her money Sculpting custom luxury decor for top-tier players who had little else to spend their gold on. Altering an Orb’s mesh was also a great way to store its value safely. Once the Orb’s shape was made inconsistent with the standard spherical slots on all weapons and armor, it was no longer considered functional and couldn’t be used to power or enchant gear, but it also couldn’t be looted from a dead player. Only through trade and craft could it be restored to a functional shape.
At length Sintari sheathed her Zbrush and stepped back to consider her work. The lighting in the small workroom shifted through several colors, intensities and points of origin as she invisibly adjusted settings to inspect the lion in different conditions. Apparently satisfied, she brushed her hands off, needlessly, for there was no real dust here, and favored Ape with a smile.
“Hey,” she said, holding out a fist for him to bump. “Sucks about earlier. You almost had it.”
Man her mocap gear must be premium, Ape thought. Sintari’s smile looked just as amazing as Ella’s.
“Ape?”
“Yeah,” he said belatedly. “I guess it feels good my plan would have worked. I’ll have to take backup if I try it again.”
“Not me,” she laughed, holding her hands up defensively. Her character had absolutely no combat skill. She was here purely for the industry. She happened to glance down and caught her breath.
“Hey nice,” she said, bending to touch Ape’s moccasins.
“Nice?” he chuckled.
“Huh? Oh no they’re hideous. Yeah. No, it’s the peridot. Can I see?”
He removed the footwear and handed them over, thankful for the simplicity of modern trade interfaces.
She removed the Peridot Orb without asking and turned it over in her hands. It had a hairline fracture on one side.
“That’s why it maxes out at, what, 60%?” she said thoughtfully. Good guess.
“Spider thing dropped it at 58%,” Ape said, impressed at her appraisal.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “Can I have it?”
“Sure,” he said. The number of precious and useful Orbs and items she’d given him for free was beyond count at this point. She could have all the peridot she wanted. “What’s it perfect for?”
“Lion’s eyes,” she said, returning the moccasins and turning back to her worktable. “Client wanted something arresting and kind of creepy for the eye color, left it up to me.” She started thinking out loud. “I can patch up the fracture with Mist Essence and it’ll look all smoky.”
Sintari sliced the Peridot Orb in half with her Zbrush, bisecting the fracture so both halves would bear the imperfection. She took a few pinches of Mist Essence from one of her many leather pouches and pressed it into the fractures, wiping away the excess with a thumb. Then she scaled the halves down to the right size and fixed them in the lion’s eye sockets. Immediately they lit up in a ghostly green and began to emit pale smoke.
Sintari grinned with pleasure, stood back and studied the lion further, with a hand on one hip.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Is it done?”
She’d never asked his opinion of her art before.
“I mean, yeah. It looks basically perfect,” Ape said. He knew he didn’t have her eye for beauty though - at least, not the artistic kind.
“Alright then,” she nodded once, and tapped the lion to finalize her edits.
Immediately the earth beneath them shuddered. There was a faint sensation of movement, barely perceptible.
Ape and Sintari looked at each other in surprise. There hadn’t been anything in last quarter’s patch notes about earthquakes, though it was a cool idea.
“What was that?” Ape asked. Sintari shook her head. “Let’s look outside.”
They weren’t the only ones to check out their surroundings. Everyone was peeking out at the streets and the sky. Nothing seemed amiss except that tiniest feeling of drift. They stepped back into Sintari’s house.
A quest box had appeared over the lion sculpture. It had an icon like the shadow of a treasure chest, with a gilded question mark in its center. The text read:
Congratulations! You’re the first to achieve the Secret Combination of Orbs! We weren’t sure if anyone ever would!
Reward:
“They who seek will find their greatest challenge in the halls beneath a statue with a heart of gold. Those who overcome shall be masters of the fate of all lands.”
Rhodium Orb x 20
Perfect Peridot Orb x 100
Orb of Mist Essence x 500
Golden Heart x 2
Ape’s jaw had dropped, and his low-budget, infrared scanner-based mocap gear translated the expression to his avatar. Sintari laughed.
“We’re rich!” she cried, slapping him on the back.
“You’re already rich,” he said. “And we? You’re the one who made the thing.”
“But you gave me the peridot; I never would have thought of it. Besides, you’re in my house, so we’re considered a party. Check your inventory.”
He did, and sure enough, half the loot was there. He wondered about the Golden Hearts. They were purely decorative, and hadn’t been part of the secret ingredients. Included in their info was a recap of the quest reward log.
“Jeez it’s good we’re in a safe zone. I can barely imagine losing this many orbs…” Ape said.
“Lost more once,” Sintari winked. She moved to dismiss the quest box and retrieve the lion. “Probably why I don’t leave the city much anymore, let Red Dog Guild do the hauling for me.”
“That quoted text though,” Ape mused. “It’s listed as a reward. You think that means something?”
“Oh yeah, obviously,” Sintari said. She rarely missed a beat. “Sounds like we need to run around smashing some statues. We’ve opened up some kind of quest line. Never heard of anything like it though. Probably combat, so we’re gonna need some help.”
“Well,” said Ape, “lucky no one else knows about this, or else…”
Sintari stiffened, looked up at him and clasped his arm firmly.
“Are you still streaming?” she rasped.
Ape’s heart sunk. He glanced up at the cluster of status icons around his name and health. The red dot for streaming was pulsing slowly, and his viewer count read, ‘2’.
A /whisper faded into his hud from a familiar name.
Thanks again bro, it read, with a little peace sign emoji. It was from Deuces.