"No, it's not." Rutha glanced down at the floor, pursing her lips. "The Drachan are bound by the Caul, but they are deathless. That which cannot die does not wither. They are behind this, I’m sure of it."
"You say this barrier is failing." I crouched down on my heels, linking my fingers between my knees. "What can we do about it?"
"Before he died, my master found an incredible artifact," Rutha said. "Go over there, and unwrap that bundle on the table."
I rose and went over, untied the bindings on the cloth, and opened it up to reveal an ornate glaive-like weapon, battered and rusty. Once, it would have been magnificent… but now, it was a ruin. The weapon was deeply tarnished, the metal pitted, and there were nine round holes bored into the haft. My HUD read it simply as [Ruined Spear].
“Aww shit,” I said. “You’re about to give me the Mana Sword, aren’t you?”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Pardon me?” Rutha finally said.
“Don’t worry.” But I was grinning now. I knew what was coming, and I didn’t mind it at all. This was classic RPG, right here. Final Fantasy. Terranigma. With the recent horrors of life still churning around in the back of my head, there was something comforting about discovering something like this. Some kinds of stories had just been around forever. This was one of them. “What is this?”
“That is very likely to be the Spear of Nine Spheres,” Rutha replied. I heard her shuffle the chair back, and looked over to see her very carefully rising to stand. “I say ‘likely’ because it’s possible that a weapon like this could be a very good fake. With the level of magic in the modern age, we can never be entirely sure… A good Aesari fake may well still read to someone like me as a very powerful magical artifact.”
“Assuming it’s real, what does it do?”
“The Spear was the weapon used to bind the spirits of The Nine - the old gods - to the Dragon Gates, which are mana nodes used to sustain the Caul,” she replied. “But it can only be used by a Starborn with the willpower and inner strength to control the energies it commands."
I held out a hand over the Spear, and when my fingertips were almost close enough to touch it, the Mark of Matir burned underneath my glove with cold fire. I hissed, and jerked my hand away. "Yeah, I think you found the real one."
"You know? How can you tell?"
"It’s a Starborn thing," I said, rubbing the back of my hand. It felt like someone had dripped liquid nitrogen on my skin. "But I don't think it likes me very much."
"The Spear is reputed to be a difficult weapon, and the magic that remains in it is heavily corrupted by time and wear, but it is necessary for restoring the integrity of the Caul of Souls," Rutha said. "My master wrote that the wielder of the Spear must find someone who is capable of re-forging it, and then take it to each one of the Dragon Gates, rebalance the energies in the Gate, and restore the words of power if any of the artificing has degraded with time. The Aesari left songs and prayers that spoke of a heroic Triad… A Paragon, who is the one to wield the Spear and bind the energy of the gods; an Artist, who is the one to reforge the Spear and repair the words of power, and some kind of protector who assists them and keeps them safe. We translated the word to ‘Warsinger’, but that doesn’t make a great deal of sense. The problem is, we don't know where any of the Dragon Gates are, or exactly who or what the 'Artist' or the ‘Warsinger’ is. My guess is the Artist is a Starborn Artificer."
I stroked my hand up over the Spear’s worn blade. "What makes you think this is for me?"
"I'm not terribly religious, but I do believe in fate. Even though I went to Gilheim, I somehow managed to end up on the same ship as you." Rutha hobbled over to stand next to me, putting her weight onto her hands as she drew close to the workbench. "And there is… Something about you. I don’t say that just because I like you, and to tell you the truth, if you asked me I wouldn’t have the words to describe what I see in you. Willpower, or… strength of will. The same thing I know is driving you north to put it to Commander Arnaud.”
I laughed briefly, and Rutha’s face flooded with a smile. My HUD activated then, displaying the formal quest notification I’d been expecting.
New Quest: Restore the Spear of Nine Spheres
The Spear of Nine Spheres, an ancient Aesari relic, was used to create the Caul of Souls - the great magical seal that protects all of Archemi from the Drachan. The Court Sorceress of Ilia, Rutha, believes you can become a hero worthy of wilding the spear and revitilizing the Caul.
Reward: ??? (Varies)
Difficulty: Epic
Special: This is a unique quest.
Special: This quest relates to a world event.
Special: This is an evolving quest. Updates will appear in your log.
‘Wilding the spear and revitilizing’? I was dyslexic, but even I knew that those errors must have slipped through the copyediting software somehow. My amusement at the typo was brief, because spelling errors or not, this was a big fucking deal. The most responsibility I’d ever had was my duty to the Army. World-shattering, world-changing events were way, way beyond the scope of my reasoning. But as I stared at the HUD notification, the fear began to shift, turning toward determination. Maybe the game had generated this quest for me, sensing my hunger to life a life of purpose and meaning. With work, self-improvement… could I be that kind of person? Not only a dragonrider, but someone able to help my new world?
I tried to take the spear again, and this time I didn't hesitate in touching it. The mark flared a second time, burning with sharp, icy pain, but as soon as I touched the haft, the pain stopped. When I lifted it, I was surprised to find that it was much lighter than normal spear. The curved, sword-like blade was elegant, but streaked with burn marks, bent and dull. I took a look at its stats while holding it:
Ruined Spear
Soul-Bound Weapon
Slot: Two-handed
Item Class: Relic
Item Quality: Ruined
Damage: 25-55 Slashing or Piercing
Durability: 36% (-5% damage)
Weight: 1 lb
Special: +2 Dexterity, Soul Bound, +50 HP, +2 Defense
Quest Updated: Reforge the Spear of Nine Spheres. You will need to find a Mastersmith capable of reforging Lazula (Bluesteel) magical artifacts.
Even with the damage penalty, the Spear was easily the strongest weapon I’d come across in Archemi so far. I slashed it a couple of times, testing its balance and weight, and my doubts began to recede. For a polearm, it was extremely light… and it felt right in my hands. I felt better just holding it. Stronger, faster, imbued with a growing sense of purpose and responsibility.
“Thank you,” I said. And I meant it. "Quest accepted. But I'm still traveling north to become a Dragon Knight."
Rutha nodded. “I had no doubt of that. You have the bearing of someone who wants to make something of themselves. I wouldn’t call it ambition, exactly…”
“I never thought of myself as ambitious, yeah. But it’d be nice to make something of my life,” I replied, palming the spear thoughtfully. “My entire family is dead. My brother… the last thing my brother did was save my ass. I want to do something that would make him proud.”
The sorceress’s expression softened. “Did your family perish in war?”
“Kind of.” I couldn’t look at her while I was speaking, so I looked at the weapon instead.
“Well… then my second gift should sit well with you.” Rutha tilted her head, a motion that caught my eye.
“Yeah?” I looked back over at her. “What’s that?”
“You’ll see,” she replied. “Tomorrow morning, after we eventually get out of bed.”
I rose an eyebrow. “Eventually?”
Rutha smiled prettily. “Eventually.”
Chapter 18
I spent a very pleasant evening with Rutha in her quarters, and once she fell asleep, I lay there in the dark, basking in my afterglow while I marveled at several things all at once. Firstly, that I�
�d met someone like Rutha by accident after years of being awkward around women. Dating had been weird and – more often than not – embarrassing. I was too much of a geek to attract normal girls, but looked too much like a dumb jock to have a chance with cute nerdy girls. I’d spent a lot of time admiring women from afar, trying not to be a creep… which led to Rutha. She was an NPC. She wasn’t a real person… or was she? If I’d met a woman like her in a bar, I couldn’t have guessed she wasn’t human. Rutha laughed when she was amused, conversed spontaneously and not always perfectly, felt pleasure and pain. It was the stumbles and caught words that arrested me the most. Robots didn’t make mistakes like that. They didn’t correct themselves. They didn’t murmur and snort in their sleep.
Rutha didn’t know she was an AI, an algorithm, that there was a physical reality beyond Archemi. She didn’t know there was a world without elves, or hit points. This was her universe. Given my previous difficulties with women, it led to some uncomfortable questions. Like most NPCs in all the games I’d ever played, was she programmed to serve the heroes and heroines that came her way? Could she love, or was she executing a program designed to please me? Did it matter?
After brooding pointlessly on the existential nature of humanity for a while, I pulled Rutha in against my side and brought up my character sheet for what felt like the first time in months:
Hector - Dauntan (Tuun)
Level 3 Warrior
==Stats==
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 18
Stamina: 14
Will: 13
Insight: 11
Intelligence: 12
HP: 212
XP: 348 (182 to Next Level)
Adrenaline: 22
(New) Renown: Mildly notable
==Abilities==
=Racial=
Blessing of Burna: +10% bonus to resist disease; +5% Stamina bonus to recover from illnesses. Immune to Pox and Lockjaw. +10% cold resistance. All physical needs accrue 2% slower.
Plateau Native: No Stamina penalties in thin air, -2 Stamina penalty at sea level.
Saddle Born: All Riding skills increase 5% faster.
Sun-sight: No vision penalties in bright or very bright light, -5% penalty in dark environments.
Blessing of Tarn: +15% movement speed.
Blessing of Hrrun: No airsickness, reduced inertia, no vertigo.
=Traits=
Curiosity: The player is an open-minded and engaged person, willing to question their modes of thinking and doing and readily accept new ideas. Combat, craft and class skills gain 5% more quickly.
Introvert: With a preference for their own company or small groups of loyal friends, the player gains a 5% bonus to accumulate skills in solitude provided they are not disturbed. Fatigue accumulates 10% faster in large groups and crowds outside of combat situations.
Dyslexic: The written word is something of a mystery to the player. Books take longer to read, and all language-related skills gain -%5 slower.
(New) Natural Leader: You have a natural inclination to take charge. Social skills increase +2% faster when engaged in leadership activities.
(New) Endurance: You are becoming accustomed to pushing yourself, even when you are exhausted. You may spend adrenaline to offset starvation, fatigue or bleeding for +1 minutes x your Stamina.
(New) Mark of Matir: May convey special abilities at higher levels. When Mark is activated, drain health from enemies on a critical hit. HP regained is equal to remaining AP + Will bonus. 300 second cooldown. You are immune to undead fear effects. – 500 Infamy in places hostile to worship of Matir.
=Combat Abilities=
Basic Weapons Training: Passive -You are trained in the arts of war, and fight unarmed and use all simple and martial hand-to-hand weapons without penalty. Does not include exotic weapons.
Armor Mobility: Passive - You are used to wearing armor and bearing heavy loads. +10 Defense in armor (L,M or H), no penalty to carrying.
Doubletap: Active, -75% Adrenaline - You strike the target, and as they reel from the blow, bring your weapon around like a snake to strike again. Deal double weapon damage.
Fury Drain: When your HP falls below 20%, you can drain 10 HP per good hit from a single enemy (Cost: 5 AP. Cooldown: 10 sec).
=Path Abilities=
None.
==Skills==
=Combat Skills=
Martial Arts 2
Polearms 4
Swords 1
Daggers 1
Clubs 1
=General Skills=
Riding 1
- (New) Riding Specialization (Dragon) 1
Navigation 2
(New) Stealth 1
(New) Negotiation 2
(New) Intimidate 1
(New) Survival 2
=Crafting Skills (Common)=
Foraging 3
(New) Improvise Shelter 3
=Crafting Skills (Advanced)=
None.
It… wasn’t looking great. I hadn’t had a chance to really start grinding any skills, let alone levels. If I’d started normally, there’d have been tutorials, easy quests, training grounds, and so on. As it stood, I had a fuzzy quest of undefined difficulty and a bunch of hoops to jump through. Still, I had two unspent ability points and all the time in the world to catch up.
The first thing I needed to do was learn some shit. With a view to the future, the first thing I did was search the game glossary for anything on dragons I could find. There was nothing about dragon riding, and the main article only had a summary of them:
Dragons (Solonkratsu)
Archemi’s native dragons, the Solonkratsu (literally ‘People of the Sun’) are perhaps the oldest race of sentient beings on Archemi, along with the Aesari and the Meewfolk. Unlike those two other ancient species, dragons are not monument builders: free-spirited, fierce and sociable, they live out their long lives as lorekeepers, hunters, and in partnership with Archemi’s terrestrial races.
Dragons have been a vital part of Archemi’s development across millennia. Due to Archemi’s impassably rough oceans, dragons were for a long time the only transport between the continents. The mana in their blood and their natural grasp of the 784 Names means they are able to perform advanced magic that is difficult for other species, such as teleportation.
Dragon society is complex, based around large clans who operate in smaller bands or ‘wings’. Wings are usually led by a dominant male and female breeding pair, but all of the wings within a single clan answer to the authority of a single Queen dragon. Male dragons are typically larger than ordinary females, and both come in an ordinary array of colors: red, blue, white, green, silver and gold being the most common. Queen dragons have exceptional colors and are generally much larger than even the strongest males, though they grow more slowly.
Dragons speak their own language, Solonkratzi. Because they hatch with the ability to fluently speak this tongue, human sages believe that Solonkratzi is the true ‘language’ of magic.
I frowned. “What the fuck are the ‘784 Names’?
The 784 Names of Power
The 784 Names of Power are the foundation of all magic on Archemi: words which are spoken, thought and written - either directly in the Aesari script or in a symbolic coded form as sigils or runes - to control, transmute, or sublimate mana. Every Name is comprised of three phonetic letter-sounds (Words) which lend the Name its power. The Words give a name its quality, associating it with one or more of the seven elements (water, fire, air, earth, light, darkness and time) and its relationship with the four modes (temperature, structure, dynamism, entropy).
It is estimated that there are millions of useful combinations of Words and Names, most of which remain undiscovered, and research into the Names is a vital branch of magical discipline.
And that, right there, was why I wasn’t playing a mage. I’d probably read a Name backwards and summon Cthulhu.
I had unspent skill points and the option to select two more abilities from t
he Warrior combat ability tree. Thinking about ‘upgrading skills’ brought up a list of my current general and combat skills.
“At every level, you gain bonus skill points that you can assign to different skills,” a light female voice spoke in my mind. The Narrator again. “General Skills, Combat Skills, Traits, and Basic and Advanced Crafting skills all interlink with Paths and with each other. Focusing on certain skills and abilities will create ‘chains’, linking and strengthening your skills and abilities. Compare and contrast skills, abilities, traits, and Paths to discover which abilities chain.”
“Mmm. Min-maxing.” I spoke aloud, before I remembered I wasn’t alone. Rutha mumbled in her sleep, and I froze, waiting to see if I’d woken her… but she simply snuggled deeper into the warm sheets and resumed snoozing.
The Warrior tree ended at Level 5, where it branched off into six possible Paths: Ranger, Rogue, Lancer, Beserker, Swordfighter, and Knight. The Dragon Knight advanced Path was one of the visible advanced Paths that branched off of Knight at Level 10 and up. I wasn’t thrilled: The Knight Path was a solid defensive class, but kind of boring.
There were two main combat branches on the Knight tree, an offensive path that was heavily focused on power attacks and heavy blows with two-handed weapons, and a defensive path that relied on a shield and sword combination. There was some cool vorpal head-chopping and paladin-like buff abilities going on at later levels, but I didn’t get tingly from any of it. I supposed the dragon was the tingly part, and the Knight Path surely changed quite a bit once you acquired a flying mount. The Passive Skills branch, which all Knights acquired, were related to leadership and riding, which was also likely to change after bonding with a dragon. Decent grunty-tanky stuff early on in the game, but likely to fall flat at later levels unless you weaseled your way into positions of social leadership.
The Path I wanted was the Lancer. Sword and shield and defensive, low-mobility tanking was not my preferred style of play. I liked high damage, high crowd control, high-speed classes that made up for their lack of defense with mobility. Depending on the game, that class was something like Dark Knight, Lancer, or Ninja. Now that I’d acquired the Spear of Nine Spears, it just made sense for me to go with Lancer.
Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset Page 15
