Playing For Keeps (Alpha World Book 4)

by Daniel Schinhofen

  “Fair enough,” Alburet paused to swallow a bite of his breakfast. “I’m happy to know that none of the men are in greater danger. Will you be switching positions with the mercenaries today?” Alburet asked Roberto, taking another bite.

  “That is the plan,” Roberto said as he got to his feet, handing his empty bowl to one of his men by a bucket. “I’m going to speak with Banthor. We head out in twenty minutes.”

  Alburet ducked back into the tent with Stacia after they’d eaten. He used his Copy ability on her, summoning her demon form. After a double hug and kiss, Stacia gathered the gear left in the tent. Back outside, Stacia dismissed the tent and put the Tentstone into a pouch. Alburet watched other tents vanish as the camp was broken and everyone prepared for the day’s travel. Banthor came over with another four Dwarves following him.

  “We be the ones that be guardin’ yer group today,” Banthor told him as he came to a stop before Alburet.

  “Be glad to have you. I’ll be moving around to speak to my guildies during the travel today. I’ll be stepping back here after each group, though.”

  “Aye, noticed tha’ yesterday.”

  Alburet summoned Bob to his side, “I summon Bob the Mighty.” Bob appeared beside him with a small puff of smoke, “Bob, you ready for more travel?”

  “Did you summon Tiny yet?” Bob blurted out, ignoring the hello.

  Blinking, Alburet shook his head, “No. Figured you might want to see his new improved body.”

  Bob bounced from foot to foot, “Thank you. Can we do it now?”

  Alburet had already checked that the new spell had replaced the older one, while keeping his customized casting preferences. “Come to me, Tiny,” Alburet invoked the spell, pointing to an empty spot a few feet from him.

  The smoke cleared, revealing a seven-foot-tall Tiny, now with studded leather tunic and pants. His shield had the Alpha Company crest emblazoned on it, and a mace now hung at his side. “I have come, called by my master,” Tiny bellowed.

  People stared at the Destroyer, who stood head and shoulders above almost everyone else in the camp. Karen whistled, “Wow. He got bigger, buffer, and better outfitted.”

  “Tiny, how does it feel?” Bob asked, bouncing around the Destroyer.

  “To be filled with power again makes me glad to have been chosen by master Alburet,” Tiny rumbled. “We must do our best to aid him in his growth.”

  “Right?” Bob cackled as he came to a stop next to Tiny. “We’re ready.”

  Kitten, Stacia’s demonic double, nodded from beside Alburet. “We be ready when ya be ready, master,” she let the last word roll off her tongue, the innuendo clear.

  A quick glance at Kitten allowed Alburet to see the amused smirk on her lips. “Alright minions, form up. When Roberto and Banthor give the order, we’ll be moving out again.”

  Gerald came over a moment later, “He got bigger. I assume his stats improved as well?”

  “Yeah, he’s now level thirty-eight. His Strength, Constitution, and Agility all went up a good amount. His other stats didn’t go up all that much, though. When they took loyalty out of the game, all my minions got increased stats. It seemed that all minions had their stats reset to the highest base stats, since high loyalty had been off-set with low stats.” Alburet replied as he watched a guard go to each campfire, “We might be about to go.”

  “His gear improved as well, maybe we’ll have an easier time of it when we get back to fighting again,” Gerald chuckled as he took up his spot in the group.

  “We are ready to move,” Roberto called out. “Once the Campstones come up we will have a ten second respite before monsters can attack us. We will be waiting for a moment to see if anything springs at us before we get moving again. The plan today will be the same as yesterday, except that today my men will be holding the outer edge and Banthor’s men will be inside the circle.”

  Roberto motioned to his men, who triggered the campfires. Each one winked out, leaving behind the Campstones, which each man put into his pack before taking up their places in the circle.

  Eleven seconds after the fires had been picked up, six groups of skeletons sprang up from the sands. Four were at the outer edge and were picked up by the guards. Two groups of skeletons were inside the formation, and the mercenaries wasted no time grabbing those.

  Alpha Company joined in on the fights, once aggro was established. As the last mob died the group cheered, feeling good at having been able to help out. After a few seconds Roberto called out loudly to get their attention. “Good job everyone, now it’s time to get moving again.”

  With that, the mass of people in formation started moving further into the Dead Lands. As the group began to move East, several conversations about the nerfed experience started as the players discovered just how much the reduction amounted to.

  Karen mentioned it in her group, “Double the number of mobs in a fight compared to yesterday. That would have been two levels or so, but now it was only a quarter of a level.”

  “They weren’t joking about reducing it significantly. Probably should have been more, but they might have been worried about going too far in a single go. Even this, though, should help cut down on people trying to game the system,” Gerald added. “I don’t think it’s that bad, we’ll still probably end up with two levels or so a day for a few more days. I wonder when the real slow down will happen for experience gains?”

  “Around the seventieth level,” Banthor cut in to answer the question.

  “That’s a bit away yet for us,” Alburet added. “I’m going to head out to start checking in with the others. Why don’t the rest of you mingle as well? It will be good for the guild to see their officers. Karen and Fluff, and Gerald and Marysue in pairs, like normal.”

  Karen took Fluff’s arm, “Sounds good. See you guys here in an hour?”

  Taking Marysue’s arm, Gerald nodded in return, “Not a bad idea. We’ll talk to the groups you visited yesterday.” Banthor nodded his agreement to the plan, reminding them all to check in with him between groups.

  Alburet and Stacia made their way over to the group headed up by DrBone, spending nearly forty minutes chatting with everyone there. As they were saying goodbye, the sand in front of the caravan shifted, revealing six groups of skeletons. In each group, there was one skeleton that didn’t rush forward to attack. Focusing on one of them, Alburet saw it was a Forgotten Elementalist. Each of the six Forgotten Elementalists was casting a spell.

  The members of Alpha Company in the middle of the raid were suddenly hit with multiple area effect spells. Ironhand’s group was subjected to a rain of fire. DrBone’s group was suddenly in the midst of a frost cloud. Alburet, near the edge of the effect, could feel the bone chilling cold radiating from the cloud. Karen and Fluffball, who were visiting Violet’s group, found themselves caught up in a small tornado.

  The guild members weren’t alone at being targeted by the magic coming in. Banthor’s group was blinded by a sandstorm, slowing down their efforts to pull others out of the effects ravaging them. In addition, the two leading groups in the raid found themselves suddenly in the midst of raging ice storms, slowing them as they tried to move forward to engage the skeletons.

  The leading tanks taunted a couple of the skeletal mages, pulling their focus from the groups in the middle. More guards raced forward to taunt the others as the skeletons that had been advancing got to the front lines.

  A voice rang out from the middle of the raid group, easily carrying over the noise of the fight, “Your will is mine to control, bend your knee to a master of death!”

  Three of the skeletal mages that had been casting new spells lowered their arms briefly. After a second they started to cast again, this time targeting their fellow mages that hadn’t been controlled.

  “Well done, Renful,” Banthor coughed as he got out of the sand storm.

  “Simply acting as Sir Dracon would have me do,” Renful snorted, his head tilted back in his normal aloof manner.


  When the area effect spells finally dissipated people started taking stock of how badly damaged they’d been. A few members of Alpha Company had come close to dying due to the damage from the spells. Luckily, the healers had been on the ball and managed to keep everyone alive, if only barely in a few cases.

  “Focus on the melee first,” Roberto called out to his men. “Renful has the mages well in hand.”

  A thin smile flitted across Renful’s lips as he threw the converted mages a few dark energy bolts to heal them. “This is child’s play, Captain.”

  Once everyone was stable, the tide of the battle turned. Having survived the surprise attack, members of the raid began to launch every spell they could into the enemy group. Less than a minute later the mobs all lay dead.

  “Well done. Loot the bodies and let’s get moving again,” Roberto called out to his men.

  As the group began to move again, the officers of Alpha Company returned to their place in the procession. “Well, that was unexpected,” Marysue stated.

  “Mages are going to be common from here on,” Banthor grunted. “We’ll be seeing increased attacks due to the number of people we have.”

  “With Roberto and your men, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Gerald replied.

  “Aye, but it will get messy at times,” Banthor added. He turned to Alburet, “Been meanin’ to ask ye, what do ye plan to do with all the item drops?”

  “What do you mean?” Alburet asked, a little confused.

  “Ye set this raid up as master loot, which means all the loot has been goin’ to ye,” Banthor frowned slightly. “Some of me men were wonderin’ iffin they might get a chance to buy any of it from ye, iffin ye can nay use it.”

  Alburet pulled his bag around to open it. The bag interface popped up, showing him that he had indeed gained all the loot from the mobs encountered so far. “I hadn’t given it too much thought,” Alburet replied. “I’ll talk it over with my officers and let you know tonight.”

  “Fair enough. It all belongs to ye, by right. Just let me know iffin ye be willing to sell some of it, aye?”

  “Will do,” Alburet agreed before turning to look at his friends. “Any ideas about what we should do with what I’ve been getting?”

  “The guild is pretty low on funds right now,” Gerald pointed out. “The rings and necklaces should be kept back, and given to guild members. We can raffle some of the rest off after we take the keep, and sell some outright. Might not be a bad idea to let the guards and mercenaries in on the raffle, too.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Karen agreed with Gerald. “That will help us build the guild funds and give our guildies the chance to get some of it.”

  “You should check the jewelry,” Fluff added softly. “Those items don’t have level or stat requirements, which means they can be used right away, even at our level.”

  Alburet pulled out the three rings and four necklaces in his bag. He examined the first one, letting out a soft whistle. “This is yours, Fluff,” he handed it to her.

  Fluff let out a pleased mew as she put the ring on. “Eighty strength and twenty constitution are really big bumps.” She smiled at Alburet, “Thank you.”

  He grinned back as he handed a necklace to Karen, a ring to Marysue and a necklace to Gerald. “There you go, guys,” he chuckled as he slipped a necklace around his neck. All of the pieces added eighty to a primary stat and twenty to another stat. The necklace Alburet now wore gave him eighty wisdom and twenty intelligence. “Gods, that is a boost.”

  Marysue agreed, “It really is, that gave Gerald another eight hundred health.”

  “Which means I can take another hit or two,” Gerald added. “Just selling these to other players would net us a huge income in the short term.”

  “It would, but I think I’m going to hand them out to each person in the guild that’s here. At least one per until everyone has one. We can see about handing out a second round after that.” Alburet slung his bag over his shoulder again.

  Banthor was frowning, “Are ye nay givin’ one to ye wife?”

  “I have all I be needin’ already,” Stacia told Banthor with a giggle. “Shiny baubles nay be me style.”

  Shaking his head Banthor laughed, “Not like any woman I ever heard of, then.”

  “That is entirely true,” Alburet replied with a straight face. “Well, time to go talk to the next group. Keep your eyes open.”

  When they paused for lunch Alburet attempted to speak with Renful, only to be coldly dismissed without pause. Giving up, he returned to the others.

  The rest of the day was variations of the fight from earlier. Two of Banthor’s tanks were assigned to the leading edge of the travelling group to help taunt casters more quickly. Renful kept his dominated undead with him, replacing them as they were killed in the fights.

  Many hours later Roberto called a halt for the day. “Okay, we’re setting up here for the night. Drop the Campstones, then set up your tents.”

  Once the Campstones were in place, people started visibly relaxing. While none of the fights had been as bad as the first one with the mages, most people had remained on edge and wary throughout the day. Now that they were safe in camp it was easy to see the tension leaving everyone.

  The Alpha Company members had each gained another four levels over the course of the day, even with the nerf to experience. That brought them up to at least eleven levels gained since the start of the adventure, and they were only two days into their trek at this point.

  “After dinner, we be doin’ a memory of ya past,” Stacia whispered to Alburet as the tent was set up.

  “Okay, just—”

  “I know, Asthore, do nay worry,” Stacia cut him off with a quick kiss.

  While he digested that thought, Gerald came over to him. “Alburet, if you’ll hand off the loot you already have, I’ll start handing it out and selling some to the mercs.”

  “Always ready to help out,” Alburet joked as he passed the gear to Gerald. “I’m glad that meeting you turned out as well as it did.”

  Meeting his eyes for a second, Gerald nodded. “I thought you were a dick the first time I met you. Glad to see that you’re actually a decent guy. Also, I wanted to say thanks,” Gerald paused, then went on. “You helped give Mary and me the kick we needed to try.”

  “Happiness is fleeting,” Alburet replied with a strained smile. “Always grab it when you can. If you’ll excuse me.” Alburet ducked into the tent without waiting for a reply, absently dropping his gear on a bedroll as he tried to put thoughts of Kaylee from his mind.

  Alburet

  Half-Blood Infernal Summoner

  Level 35

  Strength: 75 (70)

  Agility: 75 (70)

  Constitution: 30

  Intelligence: 140 (110)

  Wisdom: 352 (222)

  Charisma: 105 (70)

  Health: 2,050

  Mana: 5,270

  Demon Skin- Rank 4

  Demonic Retribution- Rank 3

  Summon Lesser Imp

  Fire Blast- Rank 3

  Sap Strength- Rank 3

  Demonic Haze- Rank 3

  Summon Destroyer

  Demonic Vitality- Rank 3

  Fire Burst- Rank 3

  Summon Succubus

  Abilities:

  Personal Spells

  Flame Weapon

  Copy

  Infernal Upgrade: (Succubus- Ally)

  (3 Upgrades to be selected)

  Racial Abilities:

  Cast spells without verbal components

  Physical damage reduction 25%

  Magical damage reduction 10%

  Influence emotions

  Fire resistance 50%

  Reputation gains at half value

  Chapter Six

  Inside the tent, Alburet dismissed Bob and Tiny as he removed his gear. “Thanks for the help today guys. I know it’s slow for you right now, but we will be getting into fights at some point.”

  “We will be ready whe
n needed,” Tiny rumbled before he vanished.

  “Are you going to summon Stacia before you summon us tomorrow?”

  “Going to summon her in just a second, actually,” Alburet told Bob.

  “Can I stay?” Bob asked, bouncing in place excitedly.

  “Nope, but you can greet her and her Copy tomorrow,” Alburet shook his head.

  Bob seemed to deflate, “That sucks.”

  “Let him stay for a moment,” Stacia said from behind him. “Ya can summon Tiny back as well. It be only fair that they be here for me as I be for them.”

  Considering for a moment, Alburet gave in, “Fine. Come to me Tiny.” He pointed at a spot a foot away, summoning Tiny back.