by Taj McCoy El
Splode it…rogues…
Bonkers stepped out of the shadows showing that he was one of these floating tags and walked towards Mo and his lot.
“So, these fellows‘ere are what you loike to call your crew, eh?” he paced around the three sizing them up. He gently tapped Ziggurast in an attempt to learn his composition. “Youse lot sure do need a bit of the training. What do ya think boys, should we teach these paladin fellows a wee bit?”
Some grumbles rolled over the room which Mo couldn’t decipher as votes for either way.
“Looks loike the boys agree. Toime to toughen you lot’o tender tots into men.” He stopped pacing and turned to face them again. “By the way, this ‘ere ‘urts me more than it ‘urts you because oi know what’s coming.”
“And what’s coming next?” Mo pumped him for information.
“Why we beat you and steal your things. That’s how youse make real men outta blouses. But you’ll be woiser and all for the experience.”
“Bonkers,” Mo raised his eyes to the leaders of the knockers, realizing he had just led his team into the lion’s den. Mephi’s fur bristled up and he looked like he was swelling. “Just to let you know, this is going to hurt you more than me, because I know what’s coming.”
“ARE YOUSE BLOODY MOCKING ME???” Bonkers roared.
“Meph!!!” Mo yelled and hot keyed his weapons and gear to activate. His face was covered in a mask that protected the eyes, nose and mouth. It was his favorite piece of equipment. He’d purchased it in the training village and Mephi was about to show them why.
A dense green cloud whooshed out from under the skunk man. In the enclosed space the effects were amplified and contained. Knockers gagged, a few dropped to a knee or stumbled away from the trio blindly knocking over furniture in an attempt to flee. Other who hadn’t been in range walked away from the noxious looking cloud
Bonkers was backing away holding a scarf over his face. After he cleared the greenish fog he straightened up and took a deep breath. On the exhale he yelled, “WHAT’YA GO’AN DO THAT FOR???” He shook his head and helped the rest of his gang out of their hideout onto the street.
“Should we fight them or something?” Mephi asked.
Mo facepalmed and said, “Maybe?” into his hand. “C’mon let’s follow them outside.”
The knockers were arranged in a semicircle around the entrance to their lair and waited for the o’ffending party to exit. Some coughed and hacked from the attack on their olfactory senses. Others were leaned up against the wall recuperating from their trip down cookie toss lane. Between the rest of the knockers and Mo, Bonkers paced rapidly back and forth talking to himself.
“This always ’appens!!! If it wasn’t for moy low reputation oi’d be able to actually achieve something in this world, oh yes oi would. Why yes…oi would loike to open a pastry store with little pastries dee-splayed in the windows. Why, yes… oi would like to find a noice dancing partner. A man can’t undo‘is croimes but’a man should be able to redeem himself. How come eveytoime oi troy, I get gobsmacked back to this utterly, wonky, hard loine of a loife?” he ranted.
Spying Mo he marched over to him and said, “Oi guess oi can see why ya’d react loike that. All of us’ere knockers have a negative reputation. So oi aim to roight this failing vessel in one fell swoop.”
Mo said nothing and waited.
“Oi, Celiaphus Bonkers swear that the knockers truly want to train youse paladins and make ya’way sturdier than y’are now. We also want to be friendly loike with youse if you’ll ‘ave us.” A golden glow passed over Bonkers and Mo finally understood that these weren’t bad fellows, but they were inflicted with a negative reputation. The AI must interpret all their actions incorrectly on purpose.
What a horrible way to live.
Mo looked over to the side to see Mephi pushing invisible buttons.
“Mephi what are you doing?”
“They’re all offering me truces. So, I’m accepting.”
Mo just facepalmed as Bonkers said “Ya moight regret tha’ in’na minute.”
✽✽✽
Ding!!!
You have defeated:
Skaduweesp
Level:12
XP: 60
1246XP till next level
Mayah was cruising through level 18 as she narrowed her search down to a few runes that she needed to combine in order to see their full effectiveness. All of the conjunctions, the “ands,” and the “A’s” and the “of’s” did little more than fizzle out upon casting. Some showed no effects on anything she had cast them, and they were slated for further experimentation. Some though had shown true promise.
Besides those she found in Kalima’s words, the six runes she had received for returning to the hall of runes definitely had some nice potential. Pare (D) basically turned the ground into a meat slicer. Anything that touched the area she cast it on was subject to slicing damage. She cast it and tossed a chunk of firewood at the ground. Instead of pinging and bouncing around like she thought, it came to a rest and extremely thin shavings floated out from under where it came into contact with the magic.
Noooooice…
Twist (A) Made small cyclone. At its current level it could probably deflect someone that was rushing her or maybe push a thirty-pound box for a foot in five seconds.
I wonder what it’ll do at higher levels?
Mint (Lf) was a snare. It grew a ten-foot patch of knee high mint. Mayah couldn’t get a reaction out of it as she tromped through it. The runebook said that as targets tried to free themselves from the minty snare, they would crush the vegetation. That would release such a strong odor of mint that had a random chance to blind and sicken the targets.
Ooooohhh… Yeah….!!!! I’m gonna make mint jelly outta e’erbody. Mint’ll do the bind and blind, and then I give them happiness. One way or the other, baby. One way or the other.
The last three were getting moved to the fore as soon as she had a chance to use them. Aegis (S) and Surge (S) were going to be extremely useful. Aegis (S) made an egg shaped buckler shield out of shadows. The narrow end was by her wrist and widened out to 14 inches at its widest. The Aegis (S) buckler fit nicely on her forearm without her having to strap it on. She activated Happiness and took a few swings, it didn’t seem to get in the way.
Lucky. Shield and hammer. Not an easy combo to master with a two-handed hammer.
As she stood there, she activated Surge (S). A wave of shadow mana blasted out from her feet quickly growing to hip height as it surged outward to crash like an ocean wave about 15 feet in diameter, and then dissipating into nothing. The description said it would push attackers back making some lose their footing.
If these made her feel more up to combating the skaduweesps and whatever fell magic they might find in Specter’s Keep, then the last rune definitely sealed the deal.
Twain (E) was an earth duplication spell. It made an earthen double of whatever you cast it upon. The earthen copy only had 25% of the original in every way. 25% durability, 25% of the hit points and none of the enchantments. The etched runes would appear but weren’t active. She cast it on Happiness and a perfect earth and stone version of Happiness appeared in her hand. The weights of the two hammers were slightly dissimilar but the shape was perfect. She stood there spinning the two hammers at imaginary foes when a notification popped into view.
Ding !!!
New Active Skill
Dual Wield Level 1
You are now able to wield weapons in both hands. Off hand is only 60% as effective as main hand in power and accuracy. Using a two-handed weapon in each hand lowers power and accuracy by 30% overall.
+1 Agility
She jumped and spun in the air letting out a Zulu yell, “Hhayi asibesabi siyabafuna.” Which translates roughly as, “Bring’em on.” She Jumped, dancing and chanting, swinging both hammers for a moment, happy at her new active skill. She decided to test the copy against the original.
She smacked the heads of the
hammers together. Clods of earth fell off the copy. While it stopped looking exactly like Happiness it would still be useful as a bludgeon. She repeated this action another three times before the copy broke down into dust in her fingers.
Nice…I’ll never be without a weapon…as long as I have a weapon. She scratched her chin as she thought, I may want to make and store these beforehand.
She played with those six runes for about twenty minutes making sure she had the hang of them, and then returned to trying out the runes she received from the legend on the wall. She needed something to hit those Skaduweesps with.
Ding!!!
You have defeated:
Skaduweesp
Level:12
XP: 60
1186XP till next level
✽✽✽
“So, Bonkers it looks like what the knockers need is a new strategy to deal with your negative reputation score. But before that, how does reputation work. I don’t seem to have one.”
“All of yer reputation’as got to be earned. That’s true with any group you come upon, loike the Majestan Empoire. Even a neutral reputation has’ta be earned. Children don’t have a reputation until they either do something really good or somethin’ really, really awful.”
“Can you show me the scale for reputation?”
“Who ere’s got the rep scale ‘andy?” Bonkers yelled over the crowd.
A scary looking man slammed a grimy piece of paper down on the table.
“Cheers, Davemarth.”
Davemarth just grumbled what sounded like Fibble under his breath. And even that sounded like a threat.
“Now, where were we’s?” Bonkers spun the paper to Mo and his team. “This ‘ere’s a sheet o’the reputation scores.”
Majestan Reputation Scores:
-50 = Infamy/Hatred / Actively hunted
-40 = Shoot on sight
-30 = Enemy/ Distrusted
-20 = Dislike
-10 = Rudeness
0 = Neutral
+10 = Polite
+20 = Liked
+30 = Ally/Trusted
+40 = Honored
+50 = Fame/ Love / Proactively protected
“So, where do the Knockers fall on this scale?”
“The hoighest scoring member is Treegan with a score of -13. He got that by going into roight rage in a foight. No one could pull him off the bloke. That fella… Well, let's say he loikes getting his nappies changed. Treegan, got cleared in court, but people were a moight a’feared of him after they knew what he moight do if’n he got angry.”
“That fella said me maw was oogly. And spit on her ta’boot,” Treegan informed them.
Bonkers pat him on the arm. “And’e got what’e deserved. Now, I think our lowest member is negative twenty-six?”
“Made negative twenty-seven yesterday,” a scratchy yell came from the back of the room. And Bonkers winced.
“Worst part is, when we troy to raise up our rep, if we’s go near’ta anyone, they’re more loikely to call the guards outta fear of us. So, we woinds up getting into trouble with the guards again, which lowers our rep …again. Nasty cycle, that.”
“Has anything you tried to do before helped?” Mo inquired of the gang leader. Bonkers sat across the table from him, back in the knockers’ lair, He just leaned back in the chair and flipped his coat so that his hand on the hilt of his knife was prominently displayed and shook his head in the negative.
Even knowing that Bonkers meant no harm Mo still read his body language as threatening. “Have you tried helping old ladies with their groceries or just being helpful around here?”
“Everytoime we troy to do something good for a neighbor we woind up getting into a roight stonking dog’s dinner. The rozzers show up and we’re roiding to the clink, whether we were in the roight or not. Things always get worse when we get ourselves involved. To prove moy point, when we’s first met, oi was jus’troying to stop youse from ‘eading towards the spoider’s den.”
“The spider’s den, what’s that?”
“That’s where the spoider eats anyone that goes there.” He jabbed a finger at Mo. “Oi moight‘ave gotten Treegan to paste youse one, but it’s still‘ead and shoulders above whatever ‘appens down that way. People go in but they come out all wonky and off their chump.”
“Off their what?” Mo asked
“Off their chump. Loose bits in the noggin, if ya catch moy drift? We‘ad one mate, Harry Hendricks, Old ‘arry we called’em. ‘E up and disappeared for a few days. When ‘e popped back up ‘e wouldn’t tell us where ‘ed been. Just grabbed ‘is belongings and took off all dog in a manger.”
“dog in a manger?”
“…keeping secrets loike. Now ‘es all hob-nobby with the guv’nahs and ladies of the science assemblage.”
“Harry never comes to plays checkers wif me anymore.” Treegan sadly added from the next table in his slow bass.
The gent sitting next to Treegan added in a harsh biting tone, “Notice that most of us keep quiet.” His hands moved wildly, as if he were about to strike Mo. “If me or some of the others even speak to ourselves near a soul, it’ll turn into a right brawl, it will.”
When the gent finished speaking Mo found he had subconsciously moved his chair back and his hand had traveled to his own dagger. He closed his eyes taking a deep breath remembering that these men were afflicted. He looked back to Bonkers and his vision was obscured.
Mephi: What are we doing with these reject toys?
Booms: I smell a quest. Gimme a few.
Ziggs: Now I wish I had a nose.
Booms: Ziggs, just quit the nose jokes.
Ziggs: but no one nose what I nose.
Mo heard the sound of someone hitting a mostly empty trash can over by the door.
Ziggs: That rattled!
Mephi: Now you nose better.
Mo couldn’t help but shake his head at the sheer idiocy of his companions. He turned his attention back to Bonkers and the task of extruding the quest from the NPCs.
“So, do you have any more ideas that you’ve tried or that you just wanna let me know? I would like to help you guys to better your situation if you’ll let me.”
“Youse really want to‘elp us? With this?” Bonkers inquired, as his head swung towards Mo like a velociraptor finding its prey. He caught Mo in a steely eyed glance and waited for Mo’s response.
Mo again took his hand off his dagger and looked Bonkers straight in the eyes and said, "I do.”
The head knocker nodded threateningly at Mo. “Well, can’t see it ‘urting ta’try. Work your magic me boy, work it good.”
Well that sounds just wrong…
DING!!!
You have been offered a quest:
Maker of Men
The Knockers trust you enough to help them raise their reputation. Let’s be honest here, they really don’t have a choice. No one has offered to help them in years. They are the forced denizens of Drahtspule, locked in the bottom position of society and still are willing to help. Because of their negative reputation they are unable to do that. Just talking to someone is met with harsh and usually violent resistance. They are 50% more likely to have a fight start just because they are in the vicinity which will only lower their presence further. How will you help them? Only the Gods know.
Time limit: 7 days MJT
Failure: No Knocker raises his presence score by 1 point.
Rewards: 1,000XP, +5 to presence and a modifier of +20% in any presence based skills or transactions. Your reputation with Drahtspule will rise from unknown to neutral.
Penalties: Becoming a Knocker with a presence score of -2 for 30 days. Any negative presence you generate during this time will be subtracted from your current presence score once the penalty duration ends.
Do you accept?
Y/N?
“You know I think this may be more than one guy can handle. Can my friends help out?” Mo sweetly inquired.
“Sure as Bob’s yer’uncle.”
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Mo sent the quest to his team.
Mephi: Booms what is this quest?
Booms: Trust me. I have an idea. You’re going to love it.
Ziggs: I didn’t know robots could feel fear.
Booms: you’re not a robot, You are a sentient artificial life form. So, decide. Do we do this? All or none, I vote yes.
Mephi: Sounds risky, 30 days with a negative presence score is pretty harsh.
Ziggs: it’s just five days IRL. So, I vote yes. I could use the extra presence.
Mephi: Fine do what you want. I’ll tag along.
Booms: Thanks, Mephi. I’ll make sure we nail this. C’mon over here, we have work to do.
Mo Accepted the quest and turned to Bonkers. “Okay, when can we meet everyone?”
✽✽✽
Ding!!!