Since I knew Jason could add his damage to the mix and we could earn money quickly, undead was my first thought. But then it occurred to me: what if we didn’t need to earn money?
“You know all the loot tables. Are there any of the mobs that drop the kind of armor that we are looking for? Fine Leather or High Quality Plate?”
The Wanderer shook his head. “Not at your level, no. You could improve to Common Leather from a camp of Horned Goblins to the west of Yerkich, but there aren’t any good options beyond that for leather and very few for plate.”
“Undead it is then.”
“Alex, if you are concerned with these quests and how to complete them, why not just have me show you the best strategy for each?”
“Believe me, that was one of the first things I thought of when I realized I should ask you about places we should go to get gear or money. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea.”
“Would this not make your mission to find the code quicker?”
“See, that’s the thing. I don’t think that it would. In fact, figuring out these quests and making my way through the storyline is likely to be more beneficial. I will be taking note of everything going on and not just rushing from one quest to the next. The more I pay attention to the details, the likelier it is that I will figure out this code problem.”
“I can see your logic, but I worry that the obstacles you can’t overcome will slow down your progress.”
“I’ll try it my way at first. If I run into a problem that is too much for me and the team, I will let you know. I don’t want to be stagnant at one particular quest or objective, either. Deal?”
“I leave it in your capable hands. I’ve sent you the locations of the undead.”
The Wanderer updated my map, and I thanked him profusely. “This will be a great help, and hopefully I won’t have to come down here much more to get this information or any other. Any time I come around here, I am sure I am putting you at risk.”
“I am shielded here, but constant travel to see me could raise questions.”
“Understood. Thanks again.”
“Before you leave, Alex,” the Wanderer said as he stood and came around the desk. “Someone in AltCon recently accessed your character.”
“Why? What were they looking for?”
“I don’t know, exactly. What I do know is that there is an order on your account to review periodically. It is likely due to the bug report you sent in when you first began the game, due to your log-out and log-in position being out of sync. This was not a bug the company had planted within the game, so they are monitoring it. And to that extent, you.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“For you, no. I have been able to mask all of the improvements in your character through the ‘error’ you noted on your log-ins. The same error occurs when you log-out, although you do not see that one. In essence, I am showing you as a character without certain skills, items, or the ‘Gift’ from Lady Tessa.”
“So we’re good?”
“In regards to your character, yes, but I cannot do the same for those in your group. If AltCon were to look at the others, they would see the Gift and it could be their undoing. I will look for ways to hide theirs as well, but I wanted you to be aware.”
“Nothing we can do about that now. I appreciate the update, and please do whatever you can. I know you have every stake in this working.”
*
Since I had a few hours to kill, at least until Jenny and her group arrived, I decided to hit up the Stinky Pit and contact Waseem. I was intrigued with the idea of becoming a thief. The Blacksuit skill had already saved me numerous times, and I knew the power of these additional skillsets.
Waseem was sitting at a table in the corner, sulking over a mug of ale, when I came in. He didn’t look up when I approached the table, but he did note, “I thought you were supposed to be a sneak. I could hear you from outside the tavern.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying to sneak, now was I?” I replied defensively, while standing in front of the table.
“First rule of thieving, always be aware of your surroundings. You turn your Blacksuit on and off, but if you want to know if someone is going to steal your purse, you need to be more aware.”
At that moment, another of the inn’s patrons walked over to our table and plopped my coin purse on the wood. “He didn’t notice a thing,” the man said as he walked off.
“Damnit! Again with stealing my coins? Now I see why they have a bank here!”
“Wouldn’t that be a fun place to rob,” Waseem said with a twinkle in his eye.
I calmed down and took the seat across from Waseem. “Ok, I get it. I suck at the thief stuff. No argument from me there. So what do I need to do?”
“Dhalean tells me you have gotten very good with the shadows at sneaking around. Says you are a natural. If that is the case, this first part won’t be hard for ya.”
“I’m not up to Dhalean’s level, but I’m not bad.”
“Hell man, ain’t none of us up to Dhalean’s level! That little bastard routinely sneaks into the Kings’ throne room and just hangs out. And the throne room has more protections than the bank! Little runt will never try to rob it with me though.”
I could tell he had a rivalry with Stan but was showing respect for his skills, so I let the comments pass.
“So what do the shadows have to do with being a thief?” I said, changing the subject.
“Everything and nothing. Such is the nature of shadows.”
“Wow. Overdramatic much?”
Waseem laughed long and hard at that. “Ok, I like you. So let’s get started. First lesson is to understand how the shadows work in this skill. Before, you grabbed the shadows and wrapped them around you to create a skin of sorts that hides you from view. In overcoming a cutpurse or a pickpocket, you grab the shadows, but you don’t wrap yourself up. You basically cocoon them around you.”
“But that’s what I do when I make my Blacksuit. How is this different?”
Waseem nodded his head. “Right, but you grab a lot of shadows to do that. In this case, the smallest amount is all you need. You aren’t becoming unseen. You are just creating a barrier against your skin. To the casual observer, you won’t look any different.”
I nodded in understanding. “And what will happen if I am successful?”
“I prefer for you to succeed and then tell me what you felt.”
I stood up and grabbed the smallest amount of shadow around me, then I tried to spread it out over my body, like I would my Blacksuit. I felt like there was a thin layer of cotton laying against my body.
“Ok, now what?”
“Stand in the middle of the room. These four boys are going to walk around you, behind you, in front of you, basically every direction. Your eyes won’t be able to see them at all times. Don’t worry about it. Use your shadows, not your eyes.”
I did as Waseem said and stood in the middle of the room. I stared straight ahead and unfocused my vision. I tried to feel what was happening around me. The four men started circling me like the sharks they were. They were talking to each other, making lewd remarks, and trying to draw my attention. I drowned them all out.
And then I felt it. The slightest push against my side. Another came from my back. One of them stumbled in front of me and I felt the same thing from my belt area. In total I counted five attempts.
Waseem called a halt to the exercise and asked each man to approach him separately. They leaned over and whispered in his ear. When the last one finished giving his secret, Waseem asked me how many times I had been “robbed.”
“I counted five attempts. Two from the back, one from my left and right side, and one from the front. That one almost had to pay me for the goods.”
The four laughed at that, and Waseem joined them with a chuckle. “Very good. But there were six attempts,” he said while placing my coin purse on the table yet again.
“Damn, who did the
sixth one?”
“I did,” Waseem said. “I’m going to teach you how I did it and how to defend from it, but you are already well on your way to learning the art of Awareness. Practice keeping that layer of shadows around you at all times. Over time, it will become second nature.”
I walked over to the table and grabbed my coin purse. Waseem put his hand on my forearm and looked in my eyes. “That was the best first attempt I’ve ever seen. You have a great future in front of you. Come back to me when you are ready for the next lesson.”
With that, I left the Stinky Pit and made my way back toward the city square. I made sure to wrap a thin shadow around me before I made a single step.
*
The guys were waiting in the city square when I arrived, and they were talking to Wayne.
“She’s going to be here any moment,” Wayne said and then saw me approaching. “Oh, Alex! There you are. Jenny is coming! I want all of us to give them a big welcome.”
“Of course, man. Totally. Dan, what’s the closest tavern?”
“Three blocks away. The Wilted Willy.”
Wayne laughed and Jason shook his head. Jason said, “There is no way that’s the name!”
“It’s the Wilted Willow, but I like mine better.”
“Me too, TC. I’m totally going with the Willy,” I said.
“Encouraging him doesn’t help anyone,” Jason sighed but smiled along with the rest of us.
“Sounds perfect. Let’s head there as soon as they arrive and congratulate them like they did for us. There won’t be any other players, but we should get them a drink for sure.”
Wayne nodded his head in thanks and then turned as our teammates approached the city square. Wayne took off toward Jenny and embraced her in a Barbarian-sized hug. Gary, Kaitlin, and Tim approached the rest of us. We exchanged regular hugs and bro-hugs: you know, where you are hugging but you are hitting at the same time. Dan tried to go in for a second hug with Kaitlin, but she slapped his arm and laughed him away.
We led the four over to the tavern, with Dan emphasizing the catchy name he had given it. Kaitlin smiled and said, “Naturally you would associate with a place called the Wilted Willy, Dan.”
Jason, never one to miss an opportunity like this, gave Kaitlin a high-five and said, “Yeah Dan, tell us about how much you love the Wilted Willy.”
Dan turned on Jason immediately and yelled, “Not fair! You hated the name five minutes ago!”
“That was before I saw the wisdom in our Druid’s words.”
Our laughter could be heard from far away, and the NPCs were looking at us strangely as we walked down the road. One particular NPC brushed past me, and I felt a push against my Awareness. I immediately grabbed his wrist. He turned and said, “Waseem says hi,” slipping his wrist from my grip and disappearing down a side alley.
Wayne noticed my attention on the alley and asked, “Everything ok, Alex?”
Kaitlin’s pet, Rocky, was nipping at Wayne’s heels as he always did whenever Wayne was around. Wayne kept leaning down to scratch behind Rocky’s ear and grumbled about having aggro. Wayne had a really soft spot for that wolf.
“All is good, brother. Just thought I saw something. Let’s get to the Willy. I could use a drink.” I suspected I would be having many similar encounters in the future.
*
We passed mugs around and told our teammates about our time in the city so far. They were excited to hear about the quest we had received and stated they would go out to the same area and try to trigger it. At 14, Tim’s Chance wasn’t bad, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough to trigger Lady Tessa. Of course, I couldn’t tell them that.
I hoped that parts of the quest would be mini-raids, like ones we had done in the past, and I told our teammates that we would want their help if it came to that. They naturally agreed and said they would extend the same offer to us.
As it turned out, our teammates had pretty much the same gear that we did. They had made more money and did not have to spend cash on the Dwarves like we did. They had three casters to our two, and Kaitlin and Tim were pure casters like Jason. Those spells were not cheap at all. Not to mention Jenny also had to pay for new skills like Dan, Wayne, and I did. Overall, we were sitting on about the same amount of cash, but we had been grinding for days to get there. Our teammates would be reaping the rewards from our exploration, and that was ok with me.
I knew that our teammates would end up taking advantage of the undead when we had finished with them, but my competitive streak wanted us to keep the knowledge secret as long as possible.
With Wayne in a serious relationship with Jenny, I expected that to be all of five minutes.
In my mind, I started coming up with a rotation where we could do 4-8 hour stretches at the undead, and then rotate out with our teammates. Their improvement in level was a benefit to us as well.
Kaitlin gave us a rundown on what had occurred at Port Town since we departed. Apparently, there were three other groups who were approaching Level 20 and would soon be joining us in the Keep. All the talk was on a particular group who had no love amongst the players in Port Town.
“They’re a bunch of Kill Stealers, Alex,” Kaitlin said. “They have made it their tactic to take other’s people’s mobs and steal the experience. We’ve made complaints to the administrators, but they’ve said that the group isn’t doing anything wrong. If the game mechanics allow for it, then it can’t be challenged. If they had found some kind of exploit that allowed them to do it, then that would be something different.”
“Why don’t they just kill their own mobs?” I asked.
“Because they’re morons. They don’t have a brain between them, and that’s obvious by the makeup of their group. Not a single main healer. They have a Warrior, a Brawler, a Rogue, and a Paladin. Only the Paladin can heal. They can dish out massive amounts of damage, but they have to sit for long periods of time before they can attack again,” Tim explained.
“Yup. So they wait till a group has taken a mob down about twenty percent. Then they establish aggro, jump in, and attack the mob. They end up out-damaging the rightful group and steal their kill. And since the mob doesn’t turn on them to aggro until near the end, they lose very little hit points,” Gary added.
“They try that stuff with you guys?” Dan asked.
“Yeah. They tried it once,” Jenny said with a big smile on her face while looking over at Gary.
Dan couldn’t hold the smile off his face, “Oh man, what did you pull?”
“Well, I decided that if they liked killing mobs so much, I would bring them some. I then collected 10 different mobs and took 20 minutes to bring them over to these bastards. I might have forgotten to yell incoming. The only one that survived was their Brawler who was able to Play Dead. He had many a nasty thing to say to me as we both lay there on the ground until the mobs returned to their spawn points,” Gary finished while laughing loudly.
I informed our teammates that the Keep was the start of Player vs. Player combat, and that we would need to be careful of this group when they eventually made it this far. If anyone was going to be a bunch of Player Killers, or PKs, it was going to be these guys.
We sat there in the Willy for a couple of hours, drinking, joking, and just enjoying each other’s company. None of these people knew that they had been chosen specifically to complete a quest that was bigger than all of us—a quest that had already claimed at least one life. The knowledge weighed heavy on me, but I was determined to not let it get me down. The best thing I could do for my group, and my teammates, was get them all prepared for the inevitable showdown. I only wish I knew where, and when, that was going to be.
FBI Headquarters
The Director for the FBI sat in her office with a heap of paperwork in front of her. Of all the jobs that came with being the Director, Melanie Grissten hated the bureaucracy parts most, even though she knew it should have been expected. The root word of bureaucracy is bureau, after all.
As Di
rector Grissten began to review another file for her approval, her secretary knocked on the door and poked his head in. “Director, Special Agents Bolden and Colvin are here to see you.”
“Please send them in, Alan.”
Grissten removed the files from her desk and prepared herself mentally for this next meeting. She had tasked Bolden and Colvin with the General’s request. Despite having a team of Special Agents already assigned to ongoing investigations on AltCon, Grissten wanted fresh eyes on this project. She hoped to avoid any bleed-over from already preconceived opinions on the company.
“Welcome. Please have a seat and let me know what you have. Alan, I am not to be disturbed unless the call is from the White House or a no-kidding emergency.”
Alan nodded his head and shut the door behind him. Alan knew a no-kidding emergency was considered a “direct threat to national security or assassination/death of a senior government official.” Grissten didn’t expect to be interrupted with those directions.
Annabelle Bolden was lead for this ad hoc team, and she began opening her briefcase as soon as she sat down. She pulled out a thin file and set it upon the closed briefcase, now sitting across her knees.
“Before we get started, did you or Agent Colvin have any problems with the folks in Corporate Concerns?”
“Nothing more than what you would expect, Madame Director. They wanted to know why they weren’t responsible for the project and naturally wanted to know what assignment we were working on. Once I told them this was a directive given to us straight from the Director, they complied without further comment. They provided us access to all of their information and have no idea that we are focusing on only the top-tier individuals in the company.”
Restoration: The Rise of Resurgence: Book II Page 8
