Sigil Online: Paragons

by Jeff Sproul

  “Affirmative!” Chase replied, as he directed his dice to the monster and to Carla.

  “Damage on the tentacles is higher than it was before!” Carla shouted. “It’s harder to hit the core, but we might not need to!”

  Riley looked for Laura’s duplicates that didn’t have glowing eyes. He didn’t have good line-of-sight on all of them.

  “Laura, can you bring your non-empowered clones in closer?” Riley asked, above the sounds of fire and torrents of burning liquid.

  “You’ve got them all,” said Laura, from about fifty feet away. “I’m down to eight.”

  One of the tendrils came crashing down at the side of the plantra. It caused the chamber to shake subtly.

  “Make that seven,” Laura said, her voice straining a bit as she ran her fingers through her hair.

  “Fifteen percent, we can do this!” Chase shouted a minute later.

  Since Riley couldn’t further empower anyone other than himself, he directed his attention to keeping everyone’s health topped off. “Laura, are any of the clones low?” he asked.

  “They’re resisting the fire liquid now,” said Laura. “The physical damage is taking them out in one hit. The plantra is attacking much faster now.”

  Riley had noticed that he wasn’t being targeted as much, but Laura was losing clones at a faster pace. Carla was dodging all around, as the plantra seemed particularly interested in killing her. Riley stood, his red glowing eyes peering all around, wondering what he could do since everyone was empowered and full health. He threw his spike out, aiming for the core. He couldn’t do much damage with it, but maybe he could draw threat to himself and away from one of the others.

  Every four or so attacks, he landed one on the core. Several seconds after his spike returned to him, one of the nearby tendrils took a swipe at him. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He kept this up, giving the others nearby the meagerest of breathing room to help increase their damage output.

  “Almost there!” Laura shouted. She was down to her ranged rifle-wielding clone, and just two melee ones. The plantra was at three percent health and falling.

  The group continued their assault, and as the battle reached close to the twenty-five minute mark, an explosion from Carla caused the plantra to drop to zero hit points. Its tentacles flailed and dropped, limp to the ground. Red goo oozed from the core before its entire body slowly dematerialized and vanished entirely from sight. In the center of the room, where the core had been, two items laid on the ground.

  For a few seconds, no one moved from where they stood. Carla clutched at her knees, as if catching her breath. Chase tilted his head side to side, as if cracking his neck, but no sound was heard. Laura sat down on the ground, then held her arm out to accept her clones back. The three remaining copies all walked back to her.

  Riley let out a heavy sigh. “So that was a rare?” he asked, looking around slowly.

  “Yeah,” said Chase. “The Deep Cavern Plantra is definitely a rare. Didn’t think it would be that close or take that long.”

  Clara was the first to take a few steps, heading for the items in the center of the room. “If we could’ve had better directed attacks to hit the core, we’d have smashed it really quick,” she said.

  “Another five minutes, and I might not’ve had any clones left,” said Laura, still seated.

  “That would’ve really pushed the fight into a crawl,” said Chase, as he walked over to Riley and patted him on the back. “You did good,” he said. “It looks like we might be tapped out for the time being. A rare usually takes a lot out of our stamina. We’re gonna head back to the city. You joining us?”

  Riley looked to him and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I don’t think my powers are too practical to be running around solo. I can’t really protect myself, or damage anything.”

  Chase chuckled. “Yeah, but you can definitely power-up your teammates.”

  By now, Laura had stood up and wandered over to Chase and Riley. Carla was picking up the items and heading back to the others.

  “Yeah, I think your powers mesh really well with ours,” Laura agreed. “I might be biased, cause my clones get quite the damage boost when they’re empowered.”

  “That, along with my dice, means we’re putting out some serious damage,” said Chase.

  Carla neared them and held out the items in each hand. “Yeah, I don’t mind being extra badass, you can hunt with us, you know...if you find the time.” She then handed a revolver with a red wooden grip, to Laura. “I think you’ll want to add this to your clone army,” she said.

  Laura reached out and took the weapon. When she touched it, she watched its stats appear.

  -

  Deep Amber Six-Shooter

  Increase Power by 8.

  Special Use Effect:

  If fully loaded, spin the chamber and pull the trigger to fire a single shot that does 10X normal damage. (This attack uses all 6 bullets.)

  (Damage based on Power stat.)

  (Bullets automatically reload every 3 seconds.)

  -

  Laura read the description for the weapon, her eyes slowly widening. “This is amazing,” she whispered. She then looked to Chase. “Look at this!” she held it out and Chase touched it.

  He read the stats and the effect. “Oh, damn. Think how much damage that’ll do if we debuff the monster and then give you a crit? Then, throw in any bonus damage that Riley might give you.”

  “I can’t wait to see how awesome the special shot is,” said Laura. “I think I’ll take out one of the melee weapons and have two ranged shooters.”

  Riley looked over to her. “How does that work, anyway?” he asked. “You have an inventory full of weapons that lets you equip your clones, or something?”

  Laura nodded and then shrugged. “Yeah, something like that. My inventory is almost always full of weapons. It severely limits me. I can hold about twenty weapons, give-or-take what they are and how much they weigh. It’s why I don’t have my clones wielding heavier things. I have to make sure my weight-limit on my character doesn’t exceed a certain threshold, else myself, and all the clones, are slowed. My clones aren’t too durable, since every one I create, essentially gets a debuff on their stats, and mine. So...yeah, there’s a lot of math involved,” she said with a soft laugh. “But this weapon is definitely meant for me.”

  Riley glanced back to Carla. “What’s the other item?” he asked.

  “Just a tank item,” she said. “Was planning on selling it. Not really suited for us.”

  “Mind if I take a peek at it?” asked Riley, trying not to seem too insistent, since he didn’t want to incur Carla’s wrath.

  Carla opened her palm and held out the item. It was a pin, which looked like a metal ball of barbed wire. “Go ahead, give it a tap,” she said. “I doubt it’ll pull in much money though.”

  Riley placed his index finger to the item, and watched as the description appeared.

  -

  Barbed Protection Charm

  All damaged against you, is increased by 50%

  Upon taking damage, increase Health and Toughness by 1 for 5 minutes. (This effect stacks.)

  -

  Riley stared at the wording. He read it over several times. He then looked to Carla. “How much would this sell for?” he asked. “Can I buy it off you?”

  Carla blinked at him. “You want this thing? It’s gonna kill you. If you take a big hit, you’re going to be dead.”

  “But I take damage all the time,” Riley explained. “Every time I empower you guys, my health takes a hit until I heal it back up by taking more essence. I’m not sure how many times I can do that in five minutes, but while I’m low on stats like I am, I think it’ll be beneficial. The health and toughness increases will be higher than the fifty percent damage increase from attacks. And if I can increase my dexterity, then I can get more stacks of the buff in a shorter amount of time.”

  Carla looked to Laura, then to Chase. “What do you guys think?” she
asked. “For certain tank players, the item might fetch a little bit of money, but it’s not all that special, especially since it didn’t get any flat stat increases. The gun was the better drop.”

  “He did help us bring it down,” said Laura. “I don’t mind letting him have it outright, if it’s not super rare.”

  “I think he pulled his weight,” said Chase. “Let him have it.”

  Carla shrugged, seeming to have no qualms about Laura and Chase’s decision. “Alright, fine by me,” she said and handed Riley the pin. “All yours.”

  Riley accepted the gift and promptly put it on, attaching it under his jacket, onto his shirt. If he was driven into a PVP situation, he didn’t want someone realizing that he was taking extra damage. Else, they may focus on larger attacks to circumvent the item’s beneficial potential.

  “So we done for today then?” asked Carla.

  “Yeah, I think so,” said Chase.

  “Let’s get back to the city,” said Laura, looking over to Riley. “I assume you’re gonna stick with us till we get to the city?”

  Riley nodded.

  “Then let's call it a day,” said Laura. She turned and headed for the exit tunnel.

  Chapter 11: Choices

  “I’m telling you, you’re missing out,” said Riley. The young man was once again seated in the cafe with his friend Aaron across from him.

  “Monster hunting sounds fun, I’ll give you that,” said Aaron. “But I’m doing pretty good with my spreadsheets,” he said with a smirk.

  Riley gave him a half grin. “You sit around all day, crafting, selling, looking at the value of items and materials. That would drive me insane. I don’t know how you play Sigil Online like that,” he said.

  Aaron shrugged. He leaned forward and sipped from a straw which was dipped into a chocolate milkshake with an interesting assortment of colored whip-topping, almost making it look like a rainbow. There were little pieces of candy within the milkshake and the topping itself. After his sip he leaned back. “It’s the only way I know how to play,” he said. “There’s a lot of nuance to my play-style.” He then gestured to one of the televisions, which was depicting a battle between two small-scale guilds, of about twenty members each.

  “Take that for instance,” he said. “That fight happened a couple blocks over from my shop. It was early yesterday morning, but they’ve been talking about it on the news a decent bit. Some bystanders got caught into the mix and some groups of players in the area joined into the fight, not knowing who was on whose side. The battle got to the point that there were a hundred players bashing each other around. I think thirty-seven players were killed?” he said, looking up for a moment as he tried to remember. “Yeah, like, high thirties I think. Anyway, I had my best sales day yesterday. Lots of players saw that fight and must’ve realized they weren’t as prepared as they’d like to be. So I managed to profit a bit off that battle, which was kinda cool.”

  “Makes you sound like some kinda warmonger,” said Riley as he took a sip of his coffee. It had become closer to room temperature, since he’d taken a while to explain his new powers and the rare spawns he’d encountered.

  “I’m not that bad!” said Aaron. “It’s not like i’m going around and starting up fights between players and stuff,” he said.

  “I know, I was just teasing.” Riley looked over to the television. “Any updates on that white bug?”

  “The thing they’re calling the White Weevil?” asked Aaron.

  “Yeah, that,” said Riley.

  “There’s been a couple reports of it being spotted,” said Aaron. “All the recent videos had it really far away. It’s hard to tell if people spotted it or not, but there’s definitely players still hunting it. There’s been a dozen or so people who’ve said that the monsters they were fighting, suddenly got really powerful and killed them. They’re all blaming the White Weevil for getting their characters killed when they can’t handle a boss’s second phase.”

  “Or third,” Riley spoke up.

  “Yeah, but most only have two phases,” said Aaron.

  “So players think the White Weevil is going around and causing monsters to kill them, but there’s been no new footage to prove it?” Riley asked.

  “Yup, that’s right.”

  “Hmm,” Riley murmured. He thought about the three players he’d met earlier. His three saviors, really. He wondered if they were hunting the White Weevil, or had any intention of doing so.

  “So what’re you going to do today?” asked Aaron. “You going to wait at bunker seven to see if those guys you were with will be there? Or are you going to meetup with those new people?”

  Riley chewed on his lower lip after Aaron asked him that. “I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I feel like crap for leaving them, only to get gobbled up by a monster...which, coincidentally gained me powers.”

  “And those are pretty cool powers, too,” said Aaron.

  “Yeah, I still can’t do any real damage myself, but it seems I’ve found a sort of hybrid support and healing role,” said Riley. “I know I couldn’t have done anything for Seth and his group. I didn’t have anything in my inventory to unfreeze Brenda. I would’ve gotten myself killed and then been a month behind on getting back up to speed.”

  “I think you did the right thing, given the situation,” said Aaron. “Think of it this way. You couldn’t help those guys when they were attacked. Nothing you could’ve done to save them. You’d have just gotten yourself killed, as you said. So I think to compensate for that crappy feeling of abandoning them, you should see if they show up at bunker seven. You said Seth died, right? But the other three might be fine. Now that you have powers, you could help them out a bit more and even take on some stronger monsters. Those new guys that saved you, might be better equipped with higher stats, but I think you should see if you can help anyone from Seth’s group. Help them get back on their feet like they did for you.”

  Riley nodded. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m just so frustrated with having died, that I really wanted to rush back into things and power myself up.”

  “You’re not the only one in the game though,” Aaron reminded him. “You didn’t level up Radiance by yourself, and you’re sure as hell not going to level vampire-Riley by yourself.”

  Riley chuckled, as Aaron even called him a vampire. “I know, I know,” he said. “I want to hunt rares with Laura’s group. Like, really bad. But I think I’ll limit that to once a week. I know where and when they meetup. So I’ll focus on seeing if Seth and his friends are going to want my help.”

  Aaron nodded. “Sounds like a good plan to me. I hope the rest of them are alright.”

  Riley sighed. “Yeah, I was sitting here thinking how difficult it would be to help out a group of tier zeroes. If two or three are still around, I’d be a huge benefit. But if only one of them has powers, or worse, if none of them do, I don’t think I’m going to be of much use in getting them back to where they were.”

  “If they’re all tier zeroes, you could always buy some of my weapons for them,” Aaron said with a grin.

  Riley lifted a brow, looking at his friend. He parted his lips to speak, but then stopped himself as he looked away. “Hmm...you know, I think you’re onto something.”

  “You going to come over and purchase some of my wares?” asked Aaron, with a somewhat surprised look.

  “No, you’re too far away and I don’t know anyone who could get me there, but I think you brought up a good idea.”

  “What? Buying weapons?” asked Aaron.

  Riley smirked. “Yeah, something like that.”

  Chapter 12: New Friends

  Unlike the place Riley had made his home when he was Radiance, Bunker 7’s rooms actually existed underground. He’d managed to afford a simple place to store his things, since it wasn’t practical to carry all the items he acquired on himself. In the last month, he’d acquired a lot of junk items that Seth’s group didn’t need, and that weren’t too worthwhi
le to sell, so they let Riley hold onto them for when he gained powers.

  Riley knelt by one of the storage chests in his room. Along with the bed in the corner, they were the only two furnishings he had. Logging out in a room with a bed allowed him a ‘buff’ upon re-entering the game. It lasted for a couple hours, and helped his stats out. The storage chest was just to keep the items he’d been acquiring. There were all sorts of furnishings he could buy for his home that would help the buff he got from logging out in a room with a bed. It was called a ‘rested buff’, which was to symbolize that he slept comfortably in a bed and had a good rest, which allowed him to perform better the next day.

  Items that improved your rested buff, could be pretty expensive, depending on what they did. Some items even affected a person’s ability to craft or perform other jobs within Sigil Online. There had been an item he had his eyes on, that would’ve increased his scavenger vision for four hours after logging back into the game after not being logged in for six hours. It had been a little pricey, so he’d decided to hold off on the purchase. He was glad he did, since now he wouldn’t be needing it.

  As Radiance, paying his rent had been relatively easy. But the last month hadn’t gotten him enough spare SC to pay even a tenth of his expenses. Luckily, he still had his savings. He was going to have to see what the next month entailed, to find out how much more he’d need to play each day, in order to return to being able to afford to pay all his bills.

  After looking through his inventory, he glanced around the room and stood up. The floor was a concrete gray and the walls and ceiling were the exact same. It had a definite ‘bunker’ look to it. It would have to do, until he found himself with a greater income.

  He went over to the wooden door and opened it. He stepped out into a concrete hall that led to a stairwell. His was the only door in the hall, since he hadn’t been given permission to visit anyone else. If he had extra permissions, then other doors would be visible. Each room was essentially a coded-off section of the game called an ‘instance,’ which couldn’t be reached by normal means.