by C. M. Carney
Yeah, yeah, you were expecting ‘If the Source wills,’ weren’t you? I wasn’t quite convinced of all that religious mumbo jumbo, not yet anyway, but I’d take inspiration from wherever it came. Why can’t these religious assholes ever just say what they mean? I grumbled, but I knew what must be done.
It was time to talk to Rubik again. I cast Commune and was thrilled to see my six-sided pal float towards me. Vonn had given me an idea for a fantastic question, one I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked before.
“Hey Rubik, can you give me a Boon that will help me defeat and escape the Agent?” Apparently, I was getting better at phrasing proper questions as the cubic creature’s thoughts invaded my mind with the best YES of my life. It grabbed my head with its rubbery hands, and then the Boon of new knowledge filled my brain. I would have collapsed to my knees, but Rubik’s noodle arms possessed far more strength than expected. My mind expanded in a nova of potential and then shrank into a singularity of possibility. It exploded and reformed a thousand upon a thousand times. Just as I knew my very being would burn away it was over.
I collapsed to the ground as drool dribbled from my suddenly parched mouth. I dry heaved and choked and fell onto my face. A new prompt was blinking in my vision.
You have been granted the Boon Accelerated Learning.
Accelerated Learning gives you a 500% increase to learning or training of one skill of your choice.
This Accelerated Learning will last for one full day.
Any Stamina cost associated with the skill chosen is negated for the duration of the Boon.
“Rubik, you are the man, or… whatever,” I said as I opened my desert dry eyes and stood. Normally, Rubik would have already floated away, but once again he was ogling me with his unblinking up and down stare. “Oh, right I said, payment.” I dug into my pack and pulled out the Writ of Cerrunos again. Rubik looked at the book and back to me, and somehow, I knew it was no longer interested in the book. Perhaps time moved differently for it as well.
I rustled through my pack, seeking something else to offer it, when I felt it grab my head again. This time he held me in a single hand that was far stronger than logic suggested it should be. It brought its other hand up and the three stumpy digits I thought of as fingers thinned out into points and moved slowly towards my face.
“Um,” I said in alarm as the now very thin and very sharp fingers came directly at my eye. I tried to pull back, but the square bastard was incredibly strong. It felt like my head was in a vice. Rubik sunk its talons into the flesh around my eye and I screamed.
The pain went on for many long seconds and then with a pop and a squelch I felt my eye being pulled from its socket. Rubik pulled the eye close and looked at it from many angles as I continued to scream. It didn’t seem to notice my distress. Just as I didn’t think things could get worse, the creature’s giant mouth opened again.
“No, no, no, do not do that,” I yelled as it moved my stolen eyeball towards the razor-toothed maw. It tossed it inside and the teeth came down with a sickening slurping pop. This fucking cube just ate my eyeball, my mind screamed in terror.
Rubik let me go and I fell to the ground, weeping in pain and horror. An odd ripple flowed over the surface of the cube and its eye shrank to the size of a grapefruit and shifted to the left. Then a small dot appeared in the space on the right side of the cube’s face and expanded into another eye. It was my eye, just much larger and now it was staring unblinking back at me.
“Aaaaggghhh!” I screamed, and the cube stared at me for a moment, before turning and floating away. The mists faded and time returned to normal. I was back in the inn.
“Aaaaggghhh!”
“Shut up dwarf,” Gaarm grumbled. “Hey what happened to your eye?”
“Aaaaggghhh!”
I jumped up and ran towards the front door. I was seriously freaked out, and my peripheral vision was shot. I bumped into people, tables and chairs. People I knew and hated all stared at me in shock and alarm, some complaining, some screaming in shock. Apparently, a man suddenly having no eye was not a normal occurrence, even in this shithole inn.
I finally reached the door and yanked it open to see the Agent standing there. I screamed again, slammed the door in her face and tried to run to the back door. With my vision so jacked up she and her goon were on me in moments.
A bit later I jumped off the bridge again and as I drowned a horrid thought went through my head. What if I come back still missing the eye?
Then I died.
☠☠☠☠☠
9
I set my empty mug down onto the table with a hollow thunk, releasing an unexpected spark of energy that would have made me jump, as it had innumerable times before, but I was a bit preoccupied. My vision seemed normal, but I brought a tentative hand up to my face to make sure. My fingers touched my eye and I let out a whimper of relief.
“Quit crying dwarf,” Gaarm said. I looked up to see he and the dealer both waiting for me to decide what to do. Anger surged up inside me and I decided that this time I was going all in. I pushed my coins into the middle of the table. “All in,” I said and tossed my card atop the pile.
Gaarm’s eyes widened in shock and then suspicion. I could almost see the misfiring neurons in his small brain sending the word cheater to his mouth, but I beat him to the punch.
“Cheater!” I yelled, pointing at the doofus Eldarian. His mouth dropped open to reveal that too often seen gaggle of rotten teeth, but no words came out. Apparently, I’d stumped the bastard.
I opened the prompt that had been blinking since that cubic prick Rubik had torn my eye out.
You have been granted the Boon Accelerated Learning.
Which skill do you wish to Accelerate?
I looked directly at Gaarm and said Analyze. A torrent of warm energy rushed into my mind, and into my eyes. I saw things in a way I never had before. Every photon of light brought information to my brain. Every breath brought enlightenment.
I turned Analyze on and left it on. Normally Analyze worked in short bursts. You’d stare all creepy like at someone and activate the skill. Your Stamina bar would go down a few ticks and you’d either learn some stuff about your target or you wouldn’t.
With no Stamina cost, there was no reason to turn it off. The amount of information that poured into my mind was incredible, and for the first time in an unknowable amount of days I wished I wasn’t drunk.
I cast my gaze around the room and drank in the information. Now, most of it I already knew from previous trips through the rabbit hole, but this time a tidal wave of prompts came at me and I had to shut them down. At this point I really wasn’t trying to glean information from them. I just wanted to grind.
I lived and died dozens of times as I upped Analyze. Eventually I grew bored ogling my fellow inn-mates and wandered the town. The first few times I only got about five minutes of staring and ogling in before I came across the Agent, but I soon discovered that if I went the opposite direction from her, I gained another five to ten minutes. That much time was like a vacation in heaven.
I won’t bore you with several dozen prompts that poured into my brain over my many lives but suffice to say the folks of Harlan’s Watch were as odd a mix of people as you’d encounter anywhere. Some had secret desires that got me feeling’ all randy, while others made me blanch and grow queasy.
Several citizens had skills I desired, and I had knowledge I could trade.
You have reached Level 1 in Air Magic.
You have reached Level 1 in Unarmed.
You have reached Level 1 in Small Blades.
You have reached Level 1 in Divination.
You have reached Level 1 in Alchemy.
You have reached Level 1 in Disarm Traps.
You have reached Level 2 in Smithing.
Several townsfolk helped me up my skills, some unwilling.
You have reached Level 19 in Stealth.
You have reached Level 18 in Dodge
You have reac
hed Level 13 in Pickpocket.
I even helped a few people.
You have been awarded 100 XP for the secret quest Teach a Boy to Pilfer.
You have taught the street urchin Furrick how to Pickpocket. He will now be able to steal enough to feed himself and his young sister Ariaan. You have made him promise to only steal from “douche bags and asshats.”
Pay it forward I say.
The sheer amount of information my brain was taking in gifted me with an ever-present headache, but I pushed through. I’d paid a heavy price for this Boon and I was gonna make the most of it. Soon I earned my reward.
You have reached Level 50 in Analyze.
You have reached Journeyman Tier in Analyze.
You can now see the Strengths and Immunities of anyone successfully Analyzed.
At Journeyman Tier the Stamina requirement for Analyze is reduced to 10 points.
Decision time was upon me. I had a whopping 8 Perk Points to spend, and a whole slew of new Skills to tempt my consumerism. But, I had been working towards one goal since I first checked out the Analyze Perk Tree. Without hesitation I put points into the Know Falsehoods, False Report 2 and Spell Osmosis. That left me with 5 Perk Points and many levels to go in Analyze. It was time to grind.
My new Perks led me to discover a kinder, gentler, less psycho and bloody way to level. My Know Falsehoods Perk really opened some questing opportunities. Most of them were simple enough, delivering love letters, making subtle threats, crafting iron daggers and the like. Quite a few of the folks about town had bounties on their heads, so I became friendly with the local constables.
You have been awarded 2,000 XP for completing the quest Teach a Boy to Pilfer (x20).
You have been awarded 10,000 XP for completing the quest A Lovely Letter (x20).
You have been awarded 20,000 XP for completing the quest A Night to Remember (x20).
You have been awarded 1,000 XP for completing the quest Craft an Iron Dagger (x20).
You have been awarded 200,000 XP for completing the choice quest Meddle in the Gang War (x20).
You have been awarded 100,000 XP for completing the quest Bounty for the Pyromaniac (x20).
You have been awarded 100,000 XP for completing the quest Bounty for the Beast Humper (x20).
You have been awarded 100,000 XP for completing the quest Bounty for the Grave Robber (x20).
You have been awarded 100,000 XP for completing the quest The Mayor is Corrupt (x20).
And all the while, my Analyze skill kept improving. Accelerated Learning was an insanely powerful Boon, and despite the horrific price I’d paid, I would almost be willing to pay it again. Maybe. Fuck you Rubik, you creepy-ass cube.
While I was enjoying my vacation minutes outside the Shining Unicorn Inn, I still had to face off against the Agent and her thralls over and over and over. My Order Magic skill kept leveling even though the spells still didn’t damage the Agent. It was time to find out why?
The Agent: Level 41 H: 678/S: 534/M: 367/SP: 1,000 - Specialty: Agent
The Agent is a servant of the High God Aluran.
Strengths: Small Blades Master. Analyze Master.
Immunities: Complete resistance to all magic cast by opponents of Journeyman or lower level. (Ring). Weaknesses: Unknown.
The Agent was a complete badass. Not only was she a way higher level than I, she was also a Master in at least two skills. Even if she was using False Reports on me, I knew that her Strengths were legit as my own False Reports 2 made me immune to any falsehoods she could have masked her Strengths with.
I would have been less certain about her Immunities, knowing that she could False Report me, but anecdotal evidence suggested that her Immunities were accurate. And even more interesting, they apparently came from a ring she wore. I would do my damned best to get my hands on that ring before this day was done.
Why wouldn’t she create a False Report on her Immunities? Did she believe that nobody could have a high enough Analyze skill to peer through her veils of secrecy? Was she that arrogant and cocksure? Perhaps that would be her undoing.
Another possibility went through my mind. Perhaps she had spent all her Perk Points on the more aggressive skills. She clearly had bolstered her Short Blades skill with a variety of Perks. Maybe she didn’t have all the Analyze Perks that I did.
I noted, that like Vonn, she had a specialty. She was an Agent. That one was a giant no duh, but I had no idea what it meant. Maybe, before I killed her I’d ask, real nice like.
I still needed to up my Analyze skill. If I could become a Master, I might steal some useful skills from her. Just for fun I blasted her with an Order Bolt. As expected it did nothing to her, but the effects on the thralls was another thing altogether. I loved killing those mute bastards.
You have earned 152,300 XP for slaying the Agent’s Thrall (x100)
You have reached Level 26 in Order Magic.
Yet, I still had a long way to go. I know, I know; I’m getting a bit sick of it too, trust me. But one can’t hack the Game Mechanics. Let’s just say I kept plugging away, grinding, completing quests, meeting the townsfolk of Harlan’s Watch and finding new and fun ways to kill the Agent’s pals. After a lot of sweat, tears, blood, vomit, headaches, screams, squeals, occasional baby talk and many, many deaths, I earned the most amazing prompt of my life.
You have reached Level 75 in Analyze.
You have reached Level 16 & 17.
You have 10 unused Attribute Points.
You have 7 unused Perk Point. (2 New and 5 Previously Earned)
You have reached Master Tier in Analyze.
You can now see the Strengths, Immunities and Weaknesses of anyone successfully Analyzed.
At Master Tier the Stamina requirement for Analyze is reduced to 5 points.
You have also opened the secret Master Tier Perk Branch Prediction.
I jumped up and down and danced in the streets, reaffirming several townsfolk’s belief that I’d make an excellent village idiot. I didn’t care, I’d leveled enough to ensure that my original plan was doable, but there was a new wrinkle. Reaching Master Tier had opened up a secret Perk Branch called Prediction, and boy was that branch appealing.
Prediction:
Those who invest in the Prediction branch of the Analyze Perk Tree can gain such incredible insight into an opponent that they can predict their actions. All Prediction Perks require that the user be of an equal or higher Tier than the opponent or creature to be effective.
Avoidance enables the user to predict an attack by an enemy and therefore avoid the attack. It feels like a sudden ability to sense danger coupled with a short burst of credible information about what to do to avoid the attack.
Foresight enables the user to not only predict and avoid an attack but also know what action to take next.
NOTE: All Secret Perk Tree Perks require 2x Perk Points to acquire.
NORE: All Secret Perk Tree Perks require 50 Stamina to activate.
“Damn,” I said, channeling my inner Chris Tucker in Friday. The Prediction Perks were incredible. As I read about Avoidance, I grinned. This had to be the trick the Agent had been using since we first met, oh so many loops ago. I dumped 2 Perk Points into Avoidance so quickly I’m surprised I didn’t pull something. “I got you now, bitch.”
Analyze Perk Tree
Tier
Understanding
Defense
Learn
B
Detect Falsehood
Block Analyze
Skill Resistance 1
A
Know Desires
False Report 1
Skill Resistance 2
J
Know Falsehood
False Report 2
Spell Osmosis
M
Know Skills
False Report 3
Skill Osmosis
G
Know Perks
False Report 4
Perk Osmosis
Analyze Hidd
en Perk Tree
Prediction (2x Points
N/A
N/A
N/A
Avoidance
Foresight.
I dumped more points into Know Skills, False Report 3 and Skill Osmosis. I was becoming a complete, if non-traditional, badass. I thought back to my conversation with Vonn about the difficulty of leveling Analyze and wondered just how few people in the Realms could do the things I could now do? Maybe this hell loop wasn’t so bad after all.
