by Arthur Stone
From an article by Stanley Haight, a popular blogger.
* * *
Ros avoided roads, villages, or any other locations marked as active leveling zones on the game forum, but he still had some misadventures on his way to Tyraum, the capital of Ducatan, a province adjacent to Livoria.
Four characters with pitch-black skin emerged from the bushes just under Ros’ nose—he didn’t notice them until the last moment. Their names were redder than anything he’d ever seen, and they were a far cry from the stupid dwarf loner who must have gotten his “color” from some hapless fool logging off in a wrong place. Indeed, these were professional killers.
“Hey ho, here we go! Why, hello, little lady!” the archer grinned mirthfully, adding as he put his arrow back in the quiver pointedly: “I’ve changed my mind about killing you. That’s right, no one’s gonna hurt you. And all I ask in return is that you stick around a while and make us happy.”
“What are you going on about?” scoffed a warrior with a short halberd. “Are you blind? Her appearance is based on her looks IRL, so she’s a minor for sure. No way you can screw this one.”
“Ayume said they managed it somehow—they found a bug or something. Which makes this an excellent opportunity to test if he was lying. Come over here, little girl. You’re gonna like it.”
“Why did you ladies decide to have your slumber party so deep in the woods?” asked Ros, emotionally preparing for a respawn—the outcome of facing four brutes like that didn’t look too good. “Afraid of level zero noobs hurting you?”
“Afraid? Us? Oh, but you’re a barrel of laughs, aren’t you? Come now, I’m starting to lose patience,” the archer approached, thrusting his hand forward.
He may have been planning to grab Ros, or maybe try something else. It didn’t matter much to Ros—he simply let loose a Chaos Arrow right in the player’s face, at point blank range.
“Critical hit: blinding.”
“You biiiiiii…” the archer howled, falling to his knees and clutching his face with his palms.
“Death to murderous bastards!” Ros shouted, and dashed toward the rest of the group, waving his staff.
All three were melee fighters, which was the most popular class, and they reacted automatically by striking attacking stances. At the very last moment, Ros turned away and ran right past them. The one in the halberd roared something, and a shiver ran down his skin.
“You successfully reflect the effects of the Stone Voice skill. Your opponent is stunned.”
This was a bit of luck. The warrior had intended to stun Ros, but the belt’s properties prevented this, and so it was the warrior who got paralyzed. Otherwise Ros’ mad dash would end right there and then.
With the archer taken out of commission for a while, and the warrior with the stunning skill incapacitated for another couple of seconds, Ros could only hope the remaining two weren’t fast runners.
* * *
In what was becoming a tradition of sorts, Ros was still running as he approached the gates of Tyraum, and jabbered quickly before the guards could ask him any questions:
“Bandits! I barely managed to escape! Had to run for quite a while!”
The NPC mage studied Ros attentively, and then asked:
“Did you see anything unusual?”
“I don’t think I did. Hey, where’s the local bank?”
“We have many of those—which one do you need?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then I suggest you make sure before you ask.”
A variety of banks suggested this was a big city. And indeed, it was the capital of a province, and not the shabbiest one, either. There was a lot more going on here than in any of the towns Ros had visited previously. There was enough to keep noobs and top players alike entertained, and players with all sorts of skills could find employment here. Thousands of players and NPCs walked the streets, and a petite flighting could get lost here much easier than the proverbial needle in the hay.
Ros looked up information on the banks on the forum, realizing it was just what he’d needed all this time—a place to keep his cash and valuable possessions. There was no point in going there without any money, so he headed for the Jewelers’ Guild, where he unloaded six hundred cut gems, and earned over five thousand silver pieces for everything. Curiously enough, no gold was given as payment even here.
Ros wondered what he would do if someone gave him a million, as that would amount to some five tons of silver. The time was right for introducing paper money—Ros was fully determined to earn a lot more than that.
He received another thousand from an NPC blacksmith in the Artisan Quarter for the metal. Then he visited the Mages’ Guild, where he purchased another buff called the Anti-Magic Shield, which reduced magic damage, obviously enough. He also got Purify—a spell that removed all negative effects and a must-have for an honest buffer, as well as Revive, which resurrected high-level players who hadn’t yet respawned. He remembered that he would need to treat the effects of critical damage, too—the Heal Injuries spell took care of those. Now it was time for a control spell: Entangling Roots was good for that, binding the target’s feet and rendering it immobile for a few seconds. The only offensive spell he got was Fireball, which was highly recommended on the forum as one of the few modifiable spells sold freely by NPCs. It was inferior to those learned from scrolls dropped by bosses; on the upside, it was available from level one, had a short cooldown, and dealt decent damage to individual targets. Ros could now alternate between Fireball and Chaos Arrow, dealing magic damage to the enemy non-stop.
He had to shell out a sum of five and a half thousand for everything, the lion’s share of which went toward Fireball. But it was worth it.
He wasn’t bothered by having to level so many skills. Only a handful would be in constant usage, while the rest were… complementary. He would have looked like a right chump in the Fallen City had their party run into mobs with nasty debuffs. He didn’t have Purify back then, after all. Besides, all his skills leveled much faster than in case of regular players due to his heroic bonuses.
He went to the bank next, renting a magically protected safe linked to the owner, and dumped a large part of his stuff in there.
Ros jostled through the market crowd after the Mages’ Guild for a while, where several players training their Pickpocket skill tried to steal from him. Hardly enthused by what he saw, he headed for the auction house, where he found out that bidding would only start six days later.
He didn’t want to waste all that time, so he rented a room at an inn and stayed there for two days, cutting gems, by the end of which he was finally rid of the remains of his ore. In between, while his mana was replenishing, he studied the game forum. On the third day, he went to the market again, having paid for a stall in the sector where equipment for low-level players was sold, and spent the whole day there, netting a mere four hundred coins for his troubles.
He certainly had no gift for commerce… His green friend Shoto would be handy here—he would likely unload all his stuff for three times the price in about an hour.
In an ironic twist, though Ros had lots of expensive items, he was forced to sell ore and gems since it was much easier and quicker.
Safer, too.
It was time to considering finding a partner who could handle all these affairs. Shoto would be great, but Ros wouldn’t approach him on pain of death now—too many people must be aware of their dealings together, so the orc would be watched.
Ros would much rather concentrate on obtaining stuff for sale instead of doing the actual selling, but he had to do everything himself. At least for the time being.
It sure was hard to be on one’s own these days…
Ros had to wait for the auction sale to begin. The anonymity of the process appealed to Ros, as he wanted to avoid being seen with valuable stuff. In order to put a lot up for bidding, one had to rent a special crate—or a box if the items were small. Only Ros or the auctioneer NPC could ope
n them. It sufficed for a player to put their hand to the crate to open it, and the NPC had a special key.
Once the NPC took an item out, he would announce its properties, and the item’s description would appear on one of the walls, like on a projection screen. The first day was reserved for announcing the lots, and the bidding itself would begin the next day. Most of the information on available lots would be published on the forum by the evening, so there was no point in staring at walls—you could just browse the forum, ponder whether or not you wanted a given lot, and then make your decision.
The player paid for crates and boxes, receiving an auction participant’s ring that was only valid for three days. Upon putting their wares in the rented crates or boxes, they left them at the auction warehouse, whereupon all those hundreds or even thousands of boxes were transported to the auction hall. The player would find the money or the wares in the very same boxes. The ring helped to identify your items by highlighting them for collection.
The system made it rather difficult to identify the owner.
Ros decided against selling the boots from the set, though he was tempted to. That would be too suspicious—the item must have been extremely rare if no one had ever sold anything like it before, so it probably made sense to hold on to it for now. Instead, he decided to sell about ten enhanced items with reasonable stat bonuses, and a few good and excellent ones with average bonuses, intending to net at least seven thousand for everything. He also put up two lots of gems: a box with fifty cut amethysts of high quality, and another one with twenty citrines.
The auction was a boring success. There was no undue excitement over any of Ros’ lots, which suited him just fine—the last thing he needed was publicity. The gems came as some surprise, selling for more than twice the price he had gotten from the NPCs.
Evidently, he had been foolish to take the easy route by unloading them to the NPCs…
Only three of the items remained unsold, which was a good result. He ended up with more than expected—a hundred short of eight thousand.
* * *
Ros came to the Mercenaries’ Guild a week later, having spent all this time primarily in Mages’ Guild libraries and traveling around the nearby towns. A burly warrior chuckled as he saw his character, then grinned, called Ros a cutie, and told him this was the lair of seasoned fighters, not pocket healers, so the young lady must be lost.
Ros replied that he wasn’t lost at all, having come here with the precise intention of hiring a detachment of fighters. Of course, if he was mistaken and there weren’t any fighters on this property, he would apologize and leave.
He was allowed to pass, though the guard grumbled something at his back.
* * *
“I need a squad of fighters for a day’s work, in the 120-150 level range. Tanks, healers, and DPS—ten ought to do it.”
The dwarf he was talking to didn’t look like a warrior—more like a typical pencil-pusher. Scratching his ear with a feather, he said in an oily voice:
“Look, miss, you are aware that recent events have resulted in a certain shortage of mercenary personnel at the guild?”
“You mean the mine war?”
“Precisely.”
“Well, sure, but that was almost a month ago!”
“There are few warriors, and of those nearly everyone is on the mend. The prices have grown considerably.”
“I’ll pay.”
“Please tell me how you intend to use our warriors. I am most dreadfully sorry, but we are in no condition to risk them on missions likely to result in heavy losses.”
“No losses expected. I need to spend a day leveling at the Fiery Cleft, to the south of Dylia.”
The dwarf looked surprised.
“Well, the monsters you find there are sure tough, but you will receive too little XP for killing them. Our warriors will get most of it—the level gap between you and them is just too big.”
“I’d like to try it, anyway. There’s no risk in it for you, right? None at all. And we all need to make a living.”
“We wouldn’t be able to charge you much for just one day’s worth of fighting, and it takes two days just to get there, and two more to return. This isn’t very convenient for us. Could we arrange something for at least a week?”
“How much do you charge for a day, and how much for a week?”
“Well, a party of ten would be overkill for the cleft. Eight would be enough. Four fighters, including two tanks, an archer, a water mage, a buffer, and a healer—a good party against creatures whose element is fire.”
“I can heal, too.”
“You’re weak.”
“But any kind of help comes in handy.”
“No one is going to give you a discount for it. A day’s work for a party like that will cost you exactly four thousand silver pieces. A week will cost twenty-five, so you save three, which is substantial.”
Ros had a little less than ten, so he shook his head.
“I won’t be able to afford a week. But, look, your warriors won’t waste any time. It’s a few hours’ walk from Dylia to a nearby royal fort—that one’s a major hub, and the army has a stationary teleport there. As far as I know, your guild has the right to use army teleports. So we could get there in a jiffy, two hours there, and two more back; we’d manage to do the whole thing within a single day, and there won’t be any logistical issues.”
“We can indeed use army teleports, but it’s not free.”
“How much would it cost to transport a party like that?”
“We’d need two transportations, which would cost around twenty-five hundred silver pieces.”
“Wow, they even charge you that much?!”
“They do, and that’s not all. We’d need to bribe them to let you come along.”
“Bribe?!”
“Sure. You aren’t a guild member, and the permit doesn’t cover civilians.”
“How much would the bribe be?”
“Five or six hundred, maybe even seven.”
Wasn’t that something! Corruption rife even among the AI-controlled NPCs!
“I’ll cover all of it. Can we set out the day after tomorrow?”
“We can, if we manage to arrange everything with the jarheads.”
Chapter 41
The first sign they saw was that the forest became sparse, woodland eventually giving way to a plain with a few low hills and the odd crooked tree sticking out, most of them dry or nearly dry. The grass wasn’t particularly lush, either—Ros had seen deserts covered with more vegetation.
The Fiery Cleft lay between two ranges of hills, resembling a very narrow quarry with craggy walls, about a mile deep. There was hot air coming from below, and you could see smoke plumes and flames coming from underneath the outcroppings of rock and the piles of slag.
Ros didn’t read much about the history of the place—it appeared that some ancient mages of great power made some kind of blunder during a massive ritual aimed at containing the element of fire, or, put simply, they tried to stop a volcano eruption. Stop it they eventually did, leaving nothing of the volcano, as well as a couple of villages and a small town, which became replaced by a crater. The nearby fields and forests suffered, too, and the locals had to relocate elsewhere.
The reason the place appealed so much to Ros was that the cleft had a certain property that made creatures of the fiery persuasion feel very much at home here. There were multitudes of such mobs, and no matter how many of them you killed, new ones kept arriving from some dimension in the Great Beyond.
When mob density became critical, they would raid the outlying area, which was why approaches to the cleft were a charred desert. Province authorities weren’t very happy about it, so a network of forts was built around the anomaly, and the players were encouraged to kill the beasts and be rewarded with lots of related quests.
There were other benefits for the players—the best “sweepers” of the cleft could earn achievements that gave substantial benefits to reside
nts of the province. Such persistent and lucky players earned profitable quests from NPCs and various discounts—the locals were also less stringent about high karma, and the guards might even ignore the ones whose names were very slightly reddish.
Yet, the cleft would have been very popular even without such bonuses. One didn’t have to look for mobs here—all you needed to do was get as far down as it took to encounter mobs in your level range. It was very easy—the lower you went, the more powerful the creatures became. The bottom was aswarm with elite mobs, including a few bosses, and some of the latter were considered “yummy” enough to warrant regular raids by top clans.
Players could level to 180 or a little higher here. Where would one begin? That depended on nothing but the players. A team of friends that worked well together could hunt quarry of levels much higher than their own. Weapons and equipment also played an important part.
Money was another option—you could literally pay for a group of high-level players to let you hang around them. When grouped up, they would get most of the XP, but you wouldn’t regret it, either, if only by avoiding the grind and saving on low-level equipment and elixirs.
There were few paths leading into the depths of the cleft, and they were particularly scarce near the fort. The leader of the group, a warrior orc by the name of Mathdun, told Ros they would go to a spot he was already familiar with, and that he would be completely in command—no idiotic orders from the client would be entertained.
Ros didn’t object to either condition.
About a dozen players were sitting near the area where the path began—high-level ones as well as the instantly identifiable noobs. The arrival of an NPC party surprised them and instantly drew their interest. When they saw a flighting player in their midst, they started to bombard Ros with questions:
