Last Horizon: Beta

by Daniel Schinhofen

  Calling the others over they examined it and then Dumadin laughed and handed Terets the dagger. The dagger was very thin and fine in appearance and slid right into the depression. A click was clearly audible and a niche opened in the side of the altar. Inside sat an elaborate chest made out of solid jade. There was a sun engraved on the lid, which simply lifted off. Removing the lid revealed two elixirs that had silver and gold motes suspended in a clear liquid.

  “Wait, didn't Smee say only he could make those?” Dumadin said looking at them.

  Kittish examined them and then compared them to the other one they still had, “They are a match. Which means either Smee is wrong or some of his stuff got all the way here. I would guess he is one of the Legendary Alchemists and this item is something they can make. Which means it could have come from one of the others.”

  Nodding, Dumadin motioned towards Felton and Emilia, “Give these elixirs to them. They can match us in the dying department that way.”

  The group agreed and Em and Felton drank them down. After they died and stood back up they grimaced, “That sucked. You guys had to do that without warning?”

  “Yeah Smee, is a sweetheart that way. At least you knew,” Dumadin grinned. “Well since we’re done let’s go turn this journal in, collect our reward and see how long we have to wait for the next bit.”

  Agreeing, they vanished and reappeared at the base of the climb to Thallien's cave.

  THALLIEN'S JOURNAL RETURNED

  The group started up the path, chatting as they collected the few mats on the way. Upon reaching the summit they were greeted by a rough, scratching voice. “Welcome back heroes, please enter my home.” Brows raised, they entered the cave and saw Thallien, sitting at the table with all the journals scattered on it along with a stack of papers.

  “We have brought the journal from the Tulum Tikal,” Dumadin laid it on the table. “I regret to tell you that the shield finally failed, but not before it brought us victory.”

  Thallien let a grin flit across his face, “It was a good shield for a long time, but everything ends in time. Please make yourselves at home until you wish to depart. I must read the latest journal, they have made so much clear to me.” A deep wracking cough shook him and he dabbed his mouth with a clean cloth. “Time is drifting away from me and I want to finish my work before the end. If you visit me again in two months I can send you after the last piece of the puzzle. You need to get stronger or you will fail in the next task. The beast guarding this last piece is the thing that snatched Bettie from me.” Another cough wracked him and he wiped his mouth again after it passed. “But first, I must rest,” taking the journal he laid on the bed holding it to him. He murmured as he drifted off, “The chest by the forge holds your payment.”

  Quest completed: Find Thallien's journals, part four.

  Receive: One hundred thousand experience and ten gold bars.

  The chest holds your golden reward.

  Thallien started to snore and the group looked at each other as Terets retrieved the chest and set it on the table, grunting at its weight. Opening it, they found sixty gold bars inside. Blinking, they looked at each other. They’d thought it was ten gold bars total, not ten each as each bar was worth five hundred gold.

  “Remember you mentioning that we might be getting more than we should?” Dumadin muttered looking at Felton. “I think you might be right now that I see this. Five thousand gold each is a bit much at the moment.”

  Terets frowned, “The last dungeon was level thirty and we did it at level fifteen. Yes, we used expert tactics and the shield which is no more but still. Jazzy is going to have to hear about this.”

  They all nodded and split the bars equally then began to divvy up the loot from the dungeon. “We don't know how much the jade might be worth so I’ll split it as evenly as I can. We also have six gold bars and twelve silver bars from the dungeon as well.” Kittish mentioned as they split everything as best as they could.

  “Well, that’s that then,” Felton said and began to get hugs, “we’ll see you guys in the last month of beta. We wish you the best of luck with the next bit which sounds insane to me.” Em collected her hugs as well as they said their goodbyes and fast traveled to Dalton.

  The four left in the cave sighed at the loss of the friends, knowing it would make the next task to come harder. “Hell, we need to get through the next two months before we speak with Thallien again.” Terets muttered and looked at his friends then grinned, “I have an idea.”

  They listened as he explained and agreed that it sounded fun and would be different from the last few months. They fast traveled to Veno to drop the money in the bank and get the bars converted to coin. Then they went to the Magi guild and entered, to be greeted by the mage on duty.

  “We would like to arrange a port to the city of San Angeles please,” Terets said with a smile as he paid the fee.

  The group laughed as they started upon the tour that Terets had explained to them. Use the stupid amount of money they had just received to hit as many cities as they could around the world. As each Magi guild building had a map of the world up it was easy enough to pick the next destination. They laughed as the second city they visited was enough to let them level to sixteen.

  They were able to visit two more cities before they had to log out due to time limit. They decided to get back together around noon the next day and continue the tour.

  “Don't forget to send full logs off to Jazzy and let her know how we found an exploit in the group functionality. It really should have booted me from the instance when I dropped group just before that fight kicked off.” Terets said, thinking about how he’d dropped out of group as he stealthed right before the High Priest fight.

  “Yeah. They need to know the current quest chain might be a little too profitable as well,” Dumadin muttered.

  “I’ll send her a private email tonight as well, so I know she gets it tonight,” Amythyst added.

  The group all logged out to get their rest before it was time to get back on.

  ISSUES AND THANKS

  At noon, eight hours after they logged out they tried to log back in only to be met by the unable to connect message. After checking the game web site they found out there was emergency downtime to fix a few issues, also the time you could be logged into the game had been fixed. It was now a total of twelve hours on a rolling clock. So if you logged in at ten in the morning you could only play for a total of twelve hours before ten the next morning. However, you could split it anyway you liked, which was nice. There was also a note about fixing various quests and modifying NPC behavior, but not which quests or NPCs.

  The server was due to be down until tomorrow morning around six, so phone calls were made. Will decided to take the day to go have some more time with Lavender. David decided it would be worth his effort to do a little poking into his condition. It might help deflect his younger sister, he hoped, if he could at least talk about having given it some effort.

  Throughout the day David noticed an increasing discomfort in his back and arms. His research showed that his bones would become increasingly brittle and pain was going to become common. Grimacing, he called it a night when dinner was ready. After eating he got in just some cuddle time with Miriam, re-watching part of the old single season of Firefly.

  The next day the friends logged back into the game around eight in the morning. They greeted each other and chatted about what they’d spent the previous day doing. Kittish smiled as she watched Amythyst and Terets hold hands. As the group started to enter the latest city a flash of light blinded them for a moment and Jazzy appeared.

  The group greeted her and then raised brows at the NPCs all staring at her in awe. The murmured voices that a messenger of the gods was outside the city began to spread. Sighing, Jazzy looked around and there was another flash of light and the group found themselves in a clearing with Jazzy some distance from the city.

  “I wish Paval hadn't put that reaction into the AI's NPC co
ding. I really hate that whole messenger of the gods stuff. It’s too close to wanting to be a Godling for my tastes.” Jazzy took a deep breath, then smiled at the group. “Anyway, I wanted to thank you all for the reports you’ve been sending in. It caused us to have to pull the servers down yesterday and examine some issues. Being able to drop group in the dungeon to avoid the group targeted spell of the High Priest, for instance. We have reworked the Shield of the Righteous as well to make sure it doesn't break encounters.”

  “It didn't break them as such,” Dumadin cut in, “but it did let us tackle content much higher level than us. It still took expert teamwork. It just let us use a new take on the old kiting tactic, is all.”

  “Level fifteen players clearing a level thirty dungeon is not what is supposed to happen, so it was broken to a degree. I know his quest chain ends with the next quest and you all can't manage it at your current level. I’m not sure you can get high enough to even really attempt it before beta ends.” She frowned and sighed, “Which is a pity, as that quest chain was wonderful to work on. We also went back and took a look at the rewards from the chain and found that the amount of gold you all received was in error as well. It was supposed to be a total of ten bars, not ten bars each.”

  “We figured that was the case. Are you guys stripping the extra or just leaving it until beta ends?” Kittish inquired, as it would influence their plans.

  “Oh you guys get to keep it since this is beta, not like it will roll over into live. Once I told Larry that you were only using it to see the different cities, he laughed. He was happy that at least someone in beta was going to get a good look at his hard work. He asks that you send him anything you think is out of place in any of the cities you visit.”

  Terets nodded, “We’ll submit is as usual with an appropriate title to catch his eyes.”

  “Excellent, you are making such progress in the beta. You aren't the highest level characters but you have done more for helping us find issues and reporting them. Your daily reports have become what gets pulled first every morning in the office. Larry and I go over them in detail and pick them apart.”

  Amythyst frowned, “What about Paval?”

  Jazzy grimaced, “He hasn't been helping as much. He’s been working on various other aspects, like financing. It was decided that you can’t sell in game currency for real money to limit liability and keep costs down. He’s been working on setting up advertising deals with various companies.”

  Amythyst shook her head, “I still do not like him. He reminds me of the Lycatela we fought the other day.”

  Jazzy giggled, “I think you might have just insulted the weasel folk. He is what he is, money focused. He always has been. We couldn't have done what we have without him handling the money issues while me and Larry did the bulk of the coding.”

  After a moment of silence, Jazzy cleared her throat, “On a personal note, I have something to say.” She turned to face Terets squarely, “Thank you, and I am sorry. You have treated my sister like a true gentleman while I was suspicious of you. She hasn't told me all that I have asked of her,” Amythyst blushed and started to speak but Jazzy continued over the top of her. “I know that you haven't tried to move fast and you’re obviously not looking for a fling. So I thank you for caring for her.”

  Terets’s face was a stone wall as he spoke carefully, “You’re welcome, but I do what I do because I care for her, not what you think. Lav and I will continue at our own pace in our own time. I will politely ask you to stay out of our relationship.”

  Jazzy blinked and planted both hands on her hips, “I think...”

  Amythyst yelled, “Sister, stop! That is enough. Leave it alone. You did this before and had to apologize. He is only voicing what we both think. We are finding our way together and if you try to meddle will only make everything worse. Let me find my own happiness, please.”

  Jazzy sighed and turned towards her sister and hugged her, “Okay sis. I just worry for you is all.”

  Terets stepped forward and placed a hand on Jazzy's shoulder, “I will not hurt your sister in any way if I can help it, my word on it.” He hugged them both, “I know how it is wanting to protect your loved ones and understand.”

  The trio shared a moment as Dumadin and Kittish looked on, smiling. After a few moments they separated and Jazzy spoke again. “Next month there will be another scheduled down time. Abilities are going to be reset and some of them reworked again. Also, the big one, housing, is coming. Larry finally finished his work. We want it in before beta ends to get player feedback. The announcement is going up tomorrow on the web.”

  “Sweet, I look forward to seeing what’s available.” Dumadin’s eyes glazed over slightly as he envisioned a keep for his friends.

  “As an unrelated side note, we’ll be putting a special page up on the web to thank our most helpful beta testers. There were also be obelisks raised in towns our key beta testers started from.” Jazzy grinned at the group when she said that, “I would bet you can guess one of the towns that is going to be receiving one.”

  Laughing the group, shook their heads, “Yeah, we got it. Are you using avatar names or real names?” Dumadin inquired, interested as to which it was going to be.

  “We debated that for a bit and went with RL names on the web page with the option of not being mentioned if that is what people want. Lavender has opted out to make sure it doesn't look like favoritism with me. The in game one is going to be avatar names, which Amythyst can be on as not many know about our connection.”

  “You can use both for me,” Dumadin said, “if you need a form filled out for players when will you be sending them?”

  “We will be sending emails out to the players in the next month or two,” Jazzy said. “And now, I should be going. I have more to look into before the next meeting. It was good to see you all again, and thanks again for all the info helping us out.” A blinding flash and she was gone shortly after she finished speaking.

  “Seems like she has calmed down since the last time,” Dumadin mentioned.

  “Yes, I had a few chats with her about my choices,” Amythyst muttered. “We have come to the agreement that I will stop bugging her about how much she works if she stays out of my love life.”

  Terets laughed, “Which means you can bug her a little for the almost grilling she started in on.”

  Amythyst dimpled and nodded, “Oh, I’ve already thought of what I’m going to do in payment.”

  They looked around for a moment, then consulted their maps. “Well, at least she didn't move us too far from the city. We didn't uncover it but I’m sure it’s only an hour or so to the west of us.” Kittish said, figuring out which way they needed to go.

  Setting off, they started throwing ideas around about what the housing was going to be like. They figured there would be different sizes of houses, most likely with different styles. “I just hope they add in something like a keep for guilds. Would be nice to have a Banana flag waving above one.” Dumadin mentioned with a smirk, “The Keep of the Banana Republic.”

  Laughing, they continued their journey towards the city and resumed their city-hopping. Before logging for the night they had hit twenty different cities around the globe to get ideas about different architecture. They each sent off emails to the devs about the issues or ideas they each had regarding the different places.

  HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

  The next few weeks were fun and exciting for the group. They visited each of the three hundred cities, earning a new achievement when they visited the final city, Tiblama.

  Achievement: World Traveler.

  Visit each major city on the globe.

  Your costs for using the Magi guild are reduced by 50%.

  They planned to meet up for dinner the next night as the game was going to be down for the next two days. The housing patch was going to click over and many people were chomping at the bit on the forums to go and build a house and tinker with the system. The patch also talked about a new profession
being added, Jeweler. Raw gems could be found while mining or smelting ore as well as randomly dropping from some creatures. The last note on the patch was that the world was going to be an evolving thing, with actions having lasting consequences. The forums were filled with speculation about how that would work and what might happen.

  They met up at Celebrity Frank's for BBQ and laughs. Will had gone early into Vegas to pick up Lavender and drive her over. They were already seated when David and Miriam arrived, waving them over to the table.

  David and Miriam approached slowly, with David limping slightly. As they reached the table Will asked, “What happened man?”

  David grimaced, “My condition means my bones are becoming brittle and easier to break. I have broken my first bones ever. The two small toes on my right foot snapped when I kicked my desk getting up the other day.”

  Will winced, “So you taped them up and are taking some pain killers then?”