Legendary Rule

by Bruce Sentar

  Ajax tried to relax as the PIU whirred up and surrounded him with the black mesh. He was glad he wasn’t overly claustrophobic.

  He opened his eyes and realized he must be in the wrong place. He spawned in a bed - a real one not the mat of his tent. He poked his head out the door to find a small living room and a door to the outside. Like someone afraid to get caught in the wrong place, he darted straight for the exit like an escaping mouse.

  A firm hand grabbed him before he could escape. Missy stepped out from what Ajax realized was the kitchen. Sky was behind her at a long kitchen table eating what he assumed was breakfast.

  “Oh you’re back! Just in time.” Missy twirled her pink hair and gave him a dazzling smile that caused him to falter. She led him over to the kitchen and he sat down mechanically taking in the house. Gesturing to Sky and back “We had some spare time and did a bit of renovating.”

  Had he been gone for months? A bit? This whole place couldn’t have sprung up in a few hours.

  Missy focused him back on her “Dear, please open up your notifications and approve them.” Did Missy just call him dear? But Ajax did as he was asked. He started to read through them.

  “No, just hit accept all. It’s faster.” Sky was now on his other side. He must have had a bewildered look, because they both giggled before Sky clarified. “These are all temporary modifications because this is your personal space, so we need you to just approve them all. And give us better access while you’re in there too. We’ll be able to load in here from the game without your help.”

  Nodding, he hesitated over the button.

  “Please, it doesn’t cost you anything. This is just junk from our PIUs” Missy seemed to know what was on his mind.

  With that, Ajax closed his eyes and pushed the button. He waited for some signal that everything was going to be okay, but it never came. When he peeked his eyes open Sky was smiling at him. “See, you didn’t die.”

  Missy practically tore his arm off as she pulled him up from his chair. She quickly led him around the small ranch home. Explaining that it was built in a modular way so that if they expanded their group they could expand the house with it. It would be a shame for anyone to feel left out and living in a game house together was important to working together better.

  She pointed out his room as the master, and he couldn’t believe how big his bed was. There was something there he wasn’t realizing. why was it so important that he have a massive bed? The question tickled something in the back of his mind, but he was pulled along by Missy faster than he could puzzle it out.

  The outside was now larger, and there was a paved path that led around the house, ending in a few empty plots that haven’t been filled. It was like they had planned out a small town in his PIU. Finally, the LR arch was now surrounded by a hedge garden with a tasteful path leading up to it.

  Ajax didn’t know what to do; he just followed along with eyes wide at his new personal space. “Does it seem bigger?”

  Sky had followed them to the LR portal. “Oh, yes. You accepted a merger of our personal spaces. So it’s about two thirds bigger.”

  Nodding, Ajax wanted nothing more than to get back into LR and kill some monster. Yeah, that would make everything right. He just needed to go practice some good ol’ violence. “Okay, it's time we get back at it.” Ajax jumped through the LR portal before the girls could drag him through anything else.

  “We’ll join you after we finish up.” Missy said after him.

  The girls both stood on the other side a moment watching Ajax jump into the game. “I think he likes it.” Sky smirked.

  With his brief alone time, Ajax thought about how he would continue his character. What makes a strong caster? Some high damage spells of course, but there is always some form of utility in a caster. Normally it’s something like crowd control, a buff, or a heavy area of effect spell. Ajax knew he needed to get at least two of these to be effective and wanted in end game groups.

  He saw Missy was building toward some sort of melee fighter and Sky was becoming an archer. Both of those were damage dealers. Missy would work short term as a tank in most games till something like a dungeon. Anything would work till they found a dungeon or boss monster. If he really wanted to fill out the group long term, he’d become a tank or a healer. Unfortunately, he didn’t really want to play either of those roles. Both can in theory solo, but it’s never as effective as a damage dealer with either some minor healing mechanism or control skills like slow.

  However, the ultimate solo characters always had pets. If he could get a pet, he could be both the tank with his pet and the healer because most pet classes get a healing spell just for their pet. He thought he could do both if only he could create a summoning skill and then learn a skill to heal his summon. He could specialize in those two skills and not deter too much from his path as a mage. So first… how to get a summoning spell…

  Given how he had gotten skills previously, he likely needed to force the issue. Maybe stand in front of a bear, look it in the eyes, and pray he could calm it down and tame it. But if it didn’t work, he could think of better things to do than getting mauled by a bear.

  Another option was to become a necromancer. But he had no idea how to raise a skeleton or zombie didn’t feel very possible without finding the proper spellbook. And becoming a necromancer was generally considered evil; Ajax wasn’t going to become Legendary Rules villain.

  That left summoning something from another plane like an elemental, angel or demon. He didn’t have what he’d need to do those either. What he needed was to understand magic in this game better.

  Everything seemed to keep coming back to the fact that he knew next to nothing about how magic actually worked. He flipped open the spell books he had absorbed earlier and started reading while doing basic exercises.

  Ajax took to doing squats and push-ups hoping to get a strength point when his attention span ran short. He wasn’t disappointed when an hour into it he got his first point of strength. However, two hours later he hadn’t seen another notification.

  The girls finally joined him outside the tent

  Ajax closed the Meditation book, having just finished it. “So what did we learn since yesterday?” Ajax looked at the two women. “I learned Axe mastery and first aid during the battle. I think they are self-explanatory.”

  Missy popped an eyebrow “I learned blade mastery and whirlwind.” A big grin spread when she talked about whirlwind “though if I keep using whirlwind for too long I’ll stun myself because of the dizzy debuff.”

  Ajax turned to Sky as she spoke. “I caught on to your critical strike Missy. Then I learned rapid shot, charged shot and bow mastery. I tried to create a skill like multi-shot or volley, but I wound up spraying skewed arrows everywhere. I might need more practice or agility to create a spell like that.” Sky paused for a second before continuing “Obviously by the skills like ax mastery and bow mastery, the game is designed to settle into specific roles. Imagine if you had ax master to level 10 then a sword drops? Would it be worth it losing ax mastery for the sword regardless of its stats?”

  Ajax looked down in thought. Sky seemed to always find these finer points. “So, you think we should stick to and specialize in our weapons?” He could see some additional benefits. It would help protect their relationship as a party so they don’t compete for loot.

  Missy looked confused “I thought you were becoming a mage. Why would you need a melee weapon? Don’t we need to find you a staff or a wand?”

  “Not only that” Sky continued “We need to determine our class functions now so we don’t waste time becoming an all-around novice.” The blue-haired beauty gave me a hard look.

  “I want to become a caster with a minion or pet. If I could summon something like an earth elemental, I think that would be my preferred choice. You are both DPS. This way if my elemental can be a tank I can be flexible and fill multiple roles.” Ajax firmed up his character in his mind; he was going to be a caster.
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br />   Sky nodded “Good, I was thinking about how to tame a beast for similar reasons. However, how do we get pets?”

  Missy stepped in on that one “Well, if Ajax wants to summon a demon shouldn’t he just try to draw a pentagram and infuse it with magic?” The group exchanged looks at that suggestion.

  Ajax’s face held disappointment at that suggestion. He had a guess for how that would turn out. “Even if that worked, there isn’t much control in what I would summon, if I did something like that. There has to be some reference in the game to direct at the more complicated spells. I don’t want to end up with a succubus or an imp.” Both girls picked up on the possibility of a succubus and gave each other a look of doubt.

  Okay, there were some positives if he summoned a succubus, but he was here to play dammit. Maybe if he could have two summons he could… play with a succubus.

  Sky had her brows pressed “It’s not a bad idea, but I’m with Ajax. Who knows if he did that what he’d summon, and if he’d even be able to control it? Could he summon a demon that would kill us all and corpse camp because it needed some sort of binding spell?”

  With that, the group let the idea of getting a pet anytime soon drop, but the hope was still lingering in the back of Ajax’s mind. It was what he needed to contribute to their team and build up his future character.

  The group discussed their skills a while longer. Missy had some eager questions about Ajax’s magical skills before going off to find two suitable knives for the others and came back with an additional belt filled with daggers that she’d strapped loose to her waist. Something about it drew Ajax’s eyes to her curves. He was taking in her legs and roaming up to her chest before finally coming to her face, which happened to be staring right back at him in a sultry challenge. “Here take a knife. You seem so very interested in them.” Missy gave him a knowing wink.

  Ajax cocked an eyebrow at the belt of daggers. Those were a few more than utility required. His eyes lingered on her thigh a bit too long and Missy gave in. “I need a ranged attack; I bet I could level it up well if you want to be target practice.” She laughed at the end, a bit too comfortable with the idea if you asked him. All the blood that had begun to divert downward reversed in a hurry.

  They still had some time before the rest of the caravan woke up and they began their next day. Missy and Sky decided to go off by themselves to talk and do some training. The two girls had seemed at odds when they first met, but now they seemed to be getting along in a surprisingly intimate kind of way. Ajax had caught them whispering like high school girls keeping secrets, but the fairer sex had always been confusing for him. At least they were getting along.

  However, Ajax’s training was going to be different. He had read both books and had found that the spells were more dynamic than the out of the box version he had been using. Magic Missile was flexible in mass and speed. The standard spell came out about the size of a football and went a bit faster than a professional could throw one.

  But if he wanted it faster, it could be if he decreased the size. He’d tried one that was about the size of a baseball, and it was fast. He couldn’t imagine someone dodging that one very easily. But they would take less damage. It was all in the strategy.

  That got him thinking. What if he could make something like a fifty caliber bullet? How fast would that go and would it do more damage? He wanted to ask Missy to be his target, but after the last time, he didn’t think that was worth him getting another gut punch. Where was Reinhart when he needed him?

  As he played with reducing Magic Missile, he decided to call his new creation an Arcane Bullet. And it only felt right to cast it using handgun motion. The spells didn’t require any specific motion, but they did shoot from his hand.

  His Arcane Missile aside, Ajax’s real prize was meditation. It did help him regenerate mana, but it also doubled as a wisdom training skill. Practicing the skill would be very effective in increasing his mana regeneration. However, increasing his mana was necessary if he wanted his spells to pack a punch. Nothing quite as satisfying as the big criticals raining down from the boss.

  He had gained one intelligence from reading the two spells books, but that wasn’t a long term solution. If he didn’t find a method soon, it was clear what he should do with his unused stats. He needed to dump them all into intelligence and then spend his time training wisdom.

  It was logical, but he wasn’t quite sure enough to commit to it. He wanted to do a bit more research before he put all of his levels in intelligence.

  Ajax spent the next bit looking through the forums to find some ideas about spells or training his intelligence stat.

  He found some posts saying that reading books in-game helped intelligence, but posts about wisdom increases seemed to come at random for most players. Maybe as they experienced more of the world their wisdom went up? Ajax wasn’t sure. He’d had a similar experience with intelligence, however, he hadn’t seen anyone else mention meditation on the forums. For now, he’d keep that to himself. He imagined many people were keeping their key findings to themselves.

  He found some interesting spells on the forums, but there were no summoning spells or pet spells he could find. He did find some references to elemental spells. People had managed to make fire spells, the classic firebolt being most common. But people had not had much luck creating larger fire spells or AoE attacks. Ajax thought it might be a limitation of their level of intelligence stat. Numerous people had created magic missiles like himself. One post really caught his attention where people were talking about developing new spells, particularly life drain. Life drain had always been a very strong skill across games he had played. Self-healing can make or break a difficult encounter. Unfortunately, the forums that had started calling themselves The Spell Lab hadn’t cracked life drain yet, but Ajax bookmarked them to keep an eye out.

  CHAPTER 17

  Ajax closed the forum window to see a +1 Wisdom system message. Apparently reading the forums made him wiser. He chuckled at the thought.

  He heard some ruffling around the camp and looked over to see some people starting to get up and mill about. Having been awake for a while, he popped up and began helping the guards get their bags into the carts. A plump man poked his head out of one of the carriages, he had a gruff look that bore no room for argument. He was watching all the guards as they stowed away their camp gear and Ajax soon realized that was for good reason.

  Inside he saw crates and chests stacked up. He couldn’t help wonder what they were carrying to Tyren. Another of the portly merchants was moving quickly despite his pudgy legs, taking stock of everything in the wagons hauling goods before the group set off. Ajax focused on him until his status window popped up and showed the merchant’s name, .

  Curiosity got the better of him. “Hey, Borris. What are you guys shipping anyways?”

  The merchant turned from his checklist and the cart with a concerned look. Ajax hadn’t spoken to Borris before; his group really hadn’t interacted much with the merchants of the caravan. Borris didn’t seem to be in charge, actually. He appeared to be the low man on the totem pole from what Ajax had seen. Either way, he seemed more willing to talk than the many other merchants that never left their pillow infested wagons.

  “Does it matter what we are selling?” Borris’ brows shot up. He didn’t seem to like Ajax’s attention on his wares.

  “Oh no, just curious. I wanted to check to make sure it wasn’t dangerous.” If anything, this made Borris more guarded. He gave Ajax a look that told him he’d fight to the death before giving up his list of what was in the crates.

  “We are taking an assortment of adventurer supplies to Tyren. We have it from good sources that a large influx of people will be heading to Tyren in the next week or so.” Ajax could almost see gold coins flash in the merchant's eyes.

  “Ah, well, I am pretty sure your sources are correct. I saw a large number in Kindle Town, and that was just the early wave. There will be many more. I’ll bet they sw
arm into Tyren in about eight or nine days.”

  The merchant had a distant look and a smile on his face. Ajax was sure he was dreaming of swimming in gold coins. He went to walk away still distracted in his thoughts, and Ajax peered at the clipboard over the merchant’s shoulder. He quickly scanned the log full of all sorts of gear and crafting materials. A section at the bottom caught his eye- three crates of books. It must have been where Danica had gotten the three books she had shown Ajax.

  Ajax’s heart skipped a beat. Three crates! Oh, that was the mother load. Not even all the rest of the cargo could compare. Just one of those book crates would bring an insane amount of wealth to the merchant caravan. If they realized the real worth of those to the new players. Ajax thought of the intelligence and the spells he could gain from the crates. Ajax’s thought about robbing the caravan caused a leather scroll to pop up.