The Clearing, Ujax Forest
The survivors huddle around in a rough circle, all of us fatigued to some extent, and several about ready to collapse, myself included. I've burned another 40 or so off the maximum of my Stamina, from the maybe five-ish I was missing prior. Regardless of how much stale water I chug or how many cheap snacks I shovel down, my Vessel needs more than that and a night's rest at The Golem to fully recover. It's not at a dangerous level, as of yet, but it will only get exponentially worse from here on out until eventually, I keel over dead.
Dying to wounds sustained in battle is punishing as is, but letting yourself die from neglect incurs a heftier timeout penalty - up from the standard five minutes - to stop people from trying to game the resurrection mechanics in order to avoid having to pay for amenities.
"We appear to be in the clear, for the time being," I sigh, removing a glove and rubbing my eyes. I ache from head to toe, as well, and the chafing of my armour has rubbed my skin raw in a few places, though as time goes by and my health ticks slowly back up that is becoming less prevalent in my mind.
"That was a terrible joke, and you should feel terrible," Windy snarks, flopping back into the soft grass. The sun overhead is starting to dip close to the horizon by now from the looks of things, placing us around mid-to-late afternoon. We can spare maybe half an hour to an hour, any later and we risk being stuck outside the gates.
"Agreed," Angelus gives me a withering look.
"Seconded," Jade piles on.
Rolling my eyes, I dig through my inventory for some food.
"So, what exactly was that all about?" Mr Fathom brings up a more pertinent topic.
"The assassins are likely our fault," I admit, feeling a little guilty towards those who died in the ambush, "As you know, DDA is less than fond of Truthseekers, and this is the third time they've come after us."
"Fourth," Jade corrects.
"Fourth?" I question.
She sighs, "He forgot again."
"If you're referring to that idiot Windy emasculated, I counted that as being a part of the City Gate Incident," I counter.
"Heh, yeah," Windy smirks, "That was funny."
"I mean I guess?" Jade shakes her head, giving up.
Turning to Mr Fathom again I bow my head briefly, "So, I apologise for involving you in our affairs. If you desire compensation, I can understand that."
He considers it for a moment then waves me off, "It's fine. As I believe I mentioned to you before, we're no friends of Darkest Dreamers either. As aggrieved bystanders, this incident shouldn't affect our relationship either."
"As you say," I accept his magnamity, "Even so, please pass my apologies onto the casualties."
He smiles a little, "I will. However, I'm a little more concerned about what that last creature was."
"An Aberrant," Angelus supplies, "Mutated monsters that pop up when certain conditions are met or by sheer random chance."
Surprised, I look to him, "You're familiar with them?"
The Beacon nods, his mood souring, "Yeah, I've been spending some time learning the world's setting with the Scholar mentor. He...treated me to a few racially charged treatises on the origins of Panoplasts."
"I see."
Between us, we go over the basic information with the rest of them.
"So, it's just a rare spawn, essentially?" Horizon summarises.
"Essentially," Angelus agrees, "I suspect that this is the 'conditional spawn' type. What those conditions might be, I have no idea."
"Agreed," I murmur, "However, I doubt that another will be spawned for another week or three. Maybe more, who can say?"
"I suppose that's for the best," Mr Fathom sighs, "I don't like our odds of surviving a second encounter today."
"All in all, it worked out fairly well," I offer consolation, "We got some valuable equipment, and a first taste of what it's like in Wolf Lord's Remains."
"Are we to expect similar odds?" he asks, concerned.
"Worse, on the whole," Much worse, "But we'll also have more people actively fighting and, ideally, appropriate gear for them."
"Whee..." Windy grumbles.
"I had hoped to talk to you concerning that, as it happens," Mr Fathom leads in.
"Oh?"
"It seems to me like the best option we have for equipping our frontliners will be to go through you," he nods, running a hand over his smooth scalp, likely out of habit given his momentary embarrassment when his fingers don't come into contact with hair. I still find myself having to mind the difference in height and build from time to time myself, so I let it go without comment.
"I'm sure we can come to an agreement, yes," I smile politely, understanding his concern, "Although, from what I hear the Pioneers Alliance will be reopening in two days time, so between them and Henna, the owner of Stone Arsenal, I don't think you need my help specifically."
Although I certainly won't turn down your money, if you insist. We have a lot of bills to pay, and even the Carcasses of the Betas and Aberrant in my bag won't fetch more than an extra few Stone Silver compared to the ordinary stock. Naturally, I don't plan on selling the Carcass of the Aberrant outright though, as at least one of the materials harvested from it's corpse will likely be exceptionally rare and valuable.
With how tough it's pelt was, I expect it will make some good quality armour, at the very least. Perhaps another instance of a Pack Exile will drop a related Schematic?
Mr Fathom considers it, "Perhaps, but it would be more beneficial to work through you in the long run, I believe. If we stick around that long, that is."
"Very well," I'm not ready to reveal that Stone Arsenal is guild property to outsiders - ally or not - quite yet, "What sort of order are you looking to place?"
"8 Sets of what Miss Fields is wearing right now, and two of the armour set you yourself are wearing."
I think it over and run through a mental checklist of materials and supply costs, "Since we'll be cooperating in Wolf Lord's Remains and this matter concerns me as well, I'll give you a discount, but I'll still need some cash upfront for materials. So, 10 Stone Gold as a deposit, plus another 20 on completion. Does that sound fair?"
Mr Fathom flinches at the quoted price, "Would it be ok to spread the final amount over a period of time? We don't have a whole lot to hand at present. At best, I can hand over five Stone Gold once we return to the city."
I frown, but I didn't really expect them to have gathered that much already, "I suppose that will have to do, but I will be adding the five left over to the end total."
He sighs, "Very well. How does a fortnight from tomorrow sound?"
"That works fine. We'll be busy tomorrow, so I'll get started on it the day after," I start closing the deal, "I'll hand each set off as they're done, and they'll all be done by the time we head to WLR. As a bonus, and to ensure you can make the payment deadline, I'll send a document with the strategy for Miner's Nightmare and Farmer's Secret when I get back tonight via private message."
"Thank you," he smiles softly, "That would be a great help."
"Think nothing of it," I shake my head, "Rather, if you get some spare accessories we'd be interested in, I'd be willing to lower the price accordingly to trade for them."
Mr Fathom rubs his chin, "I'll keep it in mind. Is there anything you're looking for in particular?"
"As I said, accessories," I shrug, "Specifically, ones that deal with Strength, Charisma and MP."
Getting Wolf Hunt to do some item farming for us on the side will save us a lot of time, but they have their own members to consider, so I won't get my hopes up.
After ironing out a rough pricing guide, we sign a System Contract to make the deal official and shake hands.
Dire Straight, Ujax Forest
"Something I've been wondering about," Windy suddenly asks while we begin our second attempt at returning, as Wolf Hunt's people chat amongst themselves and with Horizon who is regaling them with a story about some other forest from VA, "Weren't those assassins wearing Jade's gear? How'd they get that?"
"Mm. Weren't you the only person capable of unlocking equipment, Silver?" Angelus follows up.
I fold my arms, "Possibly not."
"What?" Jupiter tilts his head.
"The Reminiscence I obtained the monocle from typically rewards a few consumables upon completion which cast Basic Item Appraisal," I explain the conclusion I came to, "And considering that I was not the first person to find it, and they had around an hour to themselves before I arrived and caused it to go into hibernation for a month, it stands to reason that Darkest Dreamers Alliance may have a small stash of them to hand. I doubt that they have many, and getting two full armour sets likely used up most of it thanks to the abysmal success rate."
Enough to outfit their best agents, but not enough to compete with my business in the coming days. Olrica stealing a few pieces off of their corpses is going to make them feel a sting. But that is the risk you take when accumulating Infamy. If there weren't any punishments involved, then Merrow would become an even more chaotic mess, and faster. Like Taladi's Waystation, but across the entirety of the continent of Firmament, and amped by a suitably arbitrary number.
I say that as if it isn't an inevitability, regardless. Eventually, the power and influence held by the players will reach a breaking point and the established nations and many of the independent powers cease to be relevant any longer - with the exception of The Enduring Empire, though not for lack of trying.
Millions of players, reduced to ash without being able to take one step into the depths. It was a sore spot with the CIGs for years that they couldn't do anything - even suspecting that the game itself was working against them to prevent complete player hegemony.
Might be true, might not.
"Guess that means we won't be seeing an army of PKers suited up in Miner's Nightmare equipment," Windy mutters, "Just as well."
"The murder hobos can continue to look like hobos for all I care," Jade grouses, "I need new duds, I don't wanna look like I'm one of those jackasses."
"The Pioneers' Alliance will be operational again in two days, perhaps you'll be able to purchase something then, or pick of leatherworking," Angelus suggests.
"Already gotta grind out blacksmithing, man, don't give me more work to do," she complains back, kicking a rock.
"It's a related skill, so it's a good idea to dabble in it regardless," I point out, already expecting her to whine about it.
"Ugh, fucks sakes," Jade groans, "How many goddamn crafting jobs do I need to fuckin' do?!"
"Most of them, to be honest," I guess, "Mechanist is a rather advanced profession with a lot of influences from Enchanting, Blacksmithing, Jeweller and Alchemist in particular, from my understanding. You can compromise on some of those with help from other people feeding you components and making use of Project Collaborator - A Talent you can acquire from Henna once you hit Basic Blacksmith - for a while, but it's still a compromise."
"So, it'll just be worse than doing it all from scratch," she sighs, "I know engineering is complicated stuff, but we've got a huge globalised society and industrial complex to support us nowadays, I ain't no fuckin' metallurgist or anything. Best I can do is maintenance and optimisation for VR Capsules."
"...Isn't modifying Capsules extremely illegal?" Angelus notes worriedly, "Potential life-sentence illegal?"
"Ehhh, there's some leeway between 'fixing' or 'optimising' one and 'modifying' one," Jade explains, "I wouldn't know where to start with properly modding a Capsule, and I'm not going to fuckin' try, for obvious reasons. Problem with all-machine assembly is that it's not always smart or perceptive enough to understand when something goes wrong in the manufacturing process. So shit breaks or doesn't work as intended."
"She's not allowed to perform maintenance unsupervised, in any case," Grand adds, "Still a student after all."
"Yeah, it's extra course credit working here, plus a reference once I leave," she shrugs, "Not like I really get many chances to be hands-on. For better or worse. Least I get paid, heard one of my classmates got shafted on an internship at an independent repair shop."
"Mm, I worked as an Intern at a local branch of Yasotobi Pharmaceuticals for a month during my Sophomore year," Windy reminisces, "Got paid peanuts compared to Gaming Sanctuary."
"So, what's it like working on College level VR Capsule theory?" Jupiter butts in, suddenly interested in the previous topic of conversation.
"Complicated as hell," Jade rubs her ear between her fingers, "Not exaggerating, either. I'm great with complicated math, but this shit's just sadistic. Not as bad as it used to be, but the programming necessary just to simulate a tiny feather is ludicrously in-depth. Nowadays, we get the benefit of like, 70 years of backlogged data, templates and so on."
She pauses as we hop a sinkhole, "So for most modern VR development it's more like building with Lego bricks and painting them different colours if that makes sense. Doesn't help that non-invasive neural interface tech is incredibly finicky and one bad line of code is liable to turn some poor sap into a vegetable. Extremely unlikely, but the possibility alone is enough to have the feds breathing down your neck until you fix it."
"So, all this is from some sort of universal asset library?" I ask, interested.
"For the most part, the fundamentals like physics and texture would be," Jade confirms, "Iterated on and modified to be fit for purpose, but it's using most of the same principles. Graphical engine improvements these days are more to do with the expanding bank of donated neural and nervous feedback data. It's not any more 'real' than it was a decade ago, it's just that we're getting better at tricking the brain into thinking it is."
"Huh. Wow, I feel like I was just told Santa wasn't real all over again and the guy in the costume that one time was just a burglar," Jupiter laments, "2099 was a weird fuckin' year."
"You interested in this stuff?" she asks, a little less confrontational than usual.
"Been thinking about going into it after high school, yeah," Jupiter nods, "Math is my best subject and supposedly it pays super well. More than becoming a math teacher anyway, and I have like, basically zero desire to go back to a public school for as long as I live, so pass on that."
"It's a bit oversaturated, to be honest," Jade equivocates, "It's like, the 'big thing' every mom is telling their kid to go into these days, next to medicine and law. Sure, if you get in with the right sector you're set for life, but if you're not willing to spend the next thirty years staring at an automated assembly line or doing cheap patch jobs for rich kids that barely cover rent, I don't recommend going much further. There's just not enough jobs open for anything higher right now."
"I'll take it under advisement, thanks," Jupiter beams, sincerely grateful, "You not worried about that yourself?"
"Nope, already got an in," she denies, "So long as I get an A overall, I'm as good as hired already. So goes the promise anyway - I'm lucky enough to have caught onto the tail-end of a talent searching program at my University before they drop it."
"Neat," Jupiter looks a little disappointed to hear that, "Who for?"
"Inner World International," Jade boasts, "2-year apprenticeship into a guaranteed role."
I whistle, impressed, "That's a big name."
"No shit," she laughs, "I'm awesome."
Starting to understand where her attitude problem comes from - if only a little.
