by Taj McCoy El
“So, you foinally decoided to join us for a spot of the brekky, did ya?” Bonkers asked the weary paladin.
Mo nodded looking around for the food whose scent was assaulting his nose and stomach.
“Your friends’ere were finished in less than an hour, and now ya shows up looking loike what the cat dragged in. What took ya so gods awful long?”
“You know, the usual—for these parts at least. I guess I made someone angry, and they wanted to punch me. I seem to have that effect on people.” Mo swaggered over to the table and slammed both hands down. “There were these guys in the hallway that kept hitting me and throwing me back into the room you gave me. I thought that was very rude and so finally fought back and made it down to breakfast. Speaking of….” Mo waved a hand around.
Oddly enough Treegan answered, “Well…you’re were taking so long, and the food looked so good—Bonkers told me not to eat it, but I couldn’t help myself.” His face looked like a puppy caught doing wrong.
As hungry as Mo was, he couldn’t be mad at the gentle giant. ”S’okay, Treegan. You look like you could use the meal more than I do.” Mo’s stomach grumbled loudly as a sad counterpoint to his statement.
Booms: Thanks for saving me food.
Ziggs: You’re welcome.
Mephi: It took you so long to get here I got room for seconds.
Mephi: And thirds.
Ziggs: …and fourths. lol
Booms: You guys are great friends, you know, that right?
Ziggs: Who said we were friends?
Mo’s face screwed up at the last line. He gave Ziggs an evil look and Ziggs rocked back and forth in the motion that usually accompanied his mechanical laughter but no sound came from it.
Stupid bucket-brained, bleeping, beeping, gnarlz-licking son of a lawnmower
“First lesson’s over,” Bonkers interrupted Mo’s current train of thought. “Now what did youse learn?”
“That if you fight for three and a half hours, you’re going to get hungry,” Mo growled hangrily.
“True, but there’s more. What else did youse learn?” Bonkers probed.
Mo sighed and thought back over the last two and a half hours and counted off things that he learned. “Keep my peepers and plates open. Always expect to be hit in this building. I can’t see in the dark. I hate this training. I’m super hungry. Oh yeah, getting kicked in the face while being dragged up the steps by your legs, sucks. Did I miss anything?” he asked sarcastically.
Mephi’s face contorted at the horrors that Mo had gone through while Knockers filed in from the back entrance. They all looked a bit worse for wear and the last one waddled in holding both hands to his crotch.
Mo looked back from the entrants to Mephi, “Why are you looking at me like that?” Mo asked, his anger raising.
“You didn’t use any candles or anything? I just lit the candles and could see all the guys in the hallway.”
“So, you’re telling me, that if I had only had matches, I would’ve been able to fight in the light?” Mo growled his annoyance. “The last thing Bonkers said to me was don’t use any weapons or magic.”
“Oi said weapons and magic so ya didn’t die. These boys can get roight foired up at toimes, but it looks loike you forgot to use your brains for a bit. I’ll just chalk it up to hunger this first go round. Seems Loike ya loike to be left in the dark. None of my business, though.”
“So, Mephi, how do I usually start a fire?” His stare never left Bonkers.
“You use grease and spark it with your electricity.”
“So, why would I carry matches?”
“beep- To be prepared? -boop” Ziggs shot and scored.
Electricity crackled around Mo as his anger surged.
Bonkers tried to put his hand on Mo’s shoulder to calm him down but pulled it back as the electricity arced to his fingers giving them a nasty shock. “Remember Booms, a man will usually be found where’e can solve’is problems best.”
The line about problems swirled through his head making a hollow bang against the emptiness that had grown in his thoughts. He was doing everything in the world to save his sister, but he wasn’t doing everything in this world. The electricity faded, and he slumped into a seat.
If Mayah’s more interested in doing a dungeon, then I have time to level and get some skills. I’ve been doing the bare minimum just to get to her, that’s gotta change ASAP.
“Hey Bonkers? Mind if I run the gauntlet for the rest of the day? I’ve got a lot more to learn.”
“Maybe the boys hit’em a few too many toimes,” he said to a few chuckles and grumbles from the knocker gallery. “You gonna go buy some matches and troy it again?” Bonkers got a few more chuckles around the room.
“Nope I got a new ability from fighting blind and I want to level it.”
“What’s this Ability you’ve got? We moight ’ave a better way to train it.”
“It’s called Omen Shadow.”
“Anybody got it?” Bonkers called out, but no one responded. He looked at the knockers arrayed around the room. They looked like wolves staring at Mo like raw meat. “In that case, any volunteers for…ahem, training?” A few of them nodded.
The Knocker who had limped in cupping his bits only scowled at Mo venomously and continued trying to stop the pain.
Mo winced and looked away. A few knockers finally raised a hand holding a knife or just grunt. One just spit a copious amount of something on the ground.
“Well, if you’re going to get knocked around ya should probably have something to eat. Treegan.”
Treegan magically made two platters of food appear in his hands and placed them on the table in front of Mo.
Mo’s stomach growled loudly making everyone laugh again. Mo cared very little and dug in with gusto. A systemwide notification went off, and he saw Mephi open it and did the same.
“Ooh nice!!! Rankings for the Dungeons, he said around the food in his mouth. “3,562 teams entered…”
9.2 Victories and Vexations
Mayah woke to the sounds of trumpets blaring in frightening fanfare. She thrashed in her makeshift bedroll of Maam’s fabrics, trying to escape the omnipresent noise. She managed to get to her knees and almost completed the step that would have gotten her free from the blankets. Instead her foot caught, sending her sprawling forward. And with her arms swaddled in the fabric her face smashed against the grassy ground.
You have taken damage
-27HP Faceplant
803/830HP
She rolled over holding her nose which felt like it was broken, but without a notification she couldn’t tell. She examined her hands for blood, ignoring the notification that had so thoroughly roused her. Seeing nothing and not knowing if it was because of the parental filters or if she wasn’t that badly injured, she gently probed her face for any other damage. With that done she checked the notification.
Specter’s Keep Daily Update
3,562 teams entered the dungeon yesterday. Only 227 remain. Congratulations on making it through the first night.
Thank you, for playing Majesta.
Wow only 15.69% of the people that entered the dungeon are left? …Oh well, more rares for me!!!
She finally gathered herself up and looked at the work that was strewn around her makeshift bedroll. She hadn’t finished the shadow lenses for Grax’s mask but she was close to giving up on it. She would rather have real glass to engrave. Using the Look (W) rune caused the view to zoom in and it was disconcerting to fight with binoculars on. If there was anything to be remiss about it would be the fact that she didn’t study her runes as much as she would’ve liked. Instead she’d discovered runes in the broken control panel for capacitors and resistors for the flow of mana. While working she had also figured out that somewhere in Majesta there was something that she could use as a battery.
I really need batteries…
“If my ideas are right, I should be able to create a battery that could be charged from the person’s ow
n mana with a minimal drain of a few percent. After that the item should stay charged for quite some while.”
She was also working on a switch that would change the item from charging to direct draw. It would still only be a few mana per second but in a drawn-out battle that could be dangerous.
Oh well, I have time to work on it. She gathered up the projects and lay them on her runeagram. She sealed them in a crystal and grabbed one of the rations and began eating.
Mmmmf…. Steak salad with rice pilaf. She checked the combat notifications that she had muted so she could sleep. Screens of notifications rolled by, and she almost spit out a mouthful of food.
Oh wow. She opened the truncated view of her character sheet.
Name:
Pretty Princess Cuddle Fluff
Race:
Princess
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Title(s)
High Empress of the Pie Mountains, Enchanted Seamstress, Enchanted Grenadier, Enchanted Armorer
Raider Mark(s)
Imps of Avarice
Class Skill:
Engineer
Class Skill Points
Specialization:
Runes
25
Level:
19
XP:
5256/5551
Hp:
821
Regen:
9.50HP
per minute
Stats
Strength
19 (+10% Equip Bonus)
Max. lift
142 +14lbs
Mana:
36
Mana pool:
1080
MP Regen:
12.54 per sec.
Stamina:
35 (base 33 +2 equip bonus)
Depletion rate at max effort
.51SP
per sec.
Regen:
11.84 per min.
14 unassigned stat points and 30 unassigned attribute points
Attributes
Bonuses
Constitution:
13 (Base 12)
+15%
Endurance
15 (Base 13)
+21%
Intelligence
34 (Base 26+1 equip)
+28%
Presence:
19 (Base 16)
+21%
Perception:
8 (Base 7 equip)
+27%
Agility:
18 (base 15+1 equip)
+17%
Skills
Level
Enchantment
6
Runes
5
Rage of Pyrmos
1
55 unspent skill tree point
What in the ever-loving flarfdom is all this?
As she checked her notifications, she realized that all it was, was Vergie battling skaduweesps all night long. Summon (S) had risen to level 4. Since it had leveled twice Vergie could now remain summoned for two and a half hours.
Good girl, Vergie, Mayah smiled. She looked at her timer and it was still bottomed out and present.
Gotta go say good morning to her.
She packed up everything in the clearing not wanting to risk losing it if she somehow managed to stab herself and die. She actually was thinking about taking it easy for the day, just taking the time for some crafting. But trying to solve the mystery of Specter’s Keep was an incessant niggling in her consciousness that wouldn’t let her concentrate even if she attempted to ignore it. Whatever it was that she was going to do she decided to handle her points first.
The stat points were easy. She dumped 4 points into strength, 4 points into stamina, and 6 points into mana. That brought her up to 23 strength, 41 Mana, and 37 stamina before she added the +2 Stamina from her boots.
Gonna need to up my intelligence for my mana regen. Agility increases my dexterity and speed. Perception allows me to better see things around me—things that others miss. Coupled with my awareness that increases my observational abilities above and beyond. Endurance and Constitution up my HP and stamina regeneration, there has to be something I’m missing there. These attributes do basically the same thing.
She pulled out a ration as she chewed on the issue. Coming to the decision that she would even out those two stats until she could figure it out. She added 8 to intelligence, 7 points to constitution, 6 points to endurance and 5 to perception, and finally 4 points to agility. She left presence alone because the attribute was sitting at 16 before her bonuses, thanks to her trade agreement.
Since I don’t know how presence works yet I’ll find out when I get around some other people.
She pressed save and looked over the changes on her character sheet.
Name:
Pretty Princess Cuddle Fluff
Race:
Princess
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Title(s)
High Empress of the Pie Mountains, Enchanted Seamstress, Enchanted Grenadier, Enchanted Armorer
Raider Mark(s)
Imps of Avarice
Class Skill:
Engineer
Class Skill Points
Specialization:
Runes
25
Level:
19
XP:
5256/5551
Hp:
1448
Regen:
14.73HP
per minute
Stats
Strength
23 (+10% Equip Bonus)
Max. lift
177 +17lbs
Mana:
41
Mana pool:
1230
MP Regen:
15.84 per sec.
Stamina:
39 (base 37 +2 equip bonus)
Depletion rate at max effort
.41SP
per sec.
Regen:
23.89 per min.
Attributes
Bonuses
Constitution:
21 (Base 19)
+15%
Endurance
22 (Base 19)
+21%
Intelligence
43 (Base 34)
+28%
Presence:
19 (Base 16)
+21%
Perception:
14 (Base 12)
+27%
Agility:
18 (base 15+1 equip)
+17%
Skills
Level
Enchantment
6
Runes
5
Rage of Pyrmos
1
55 unspent skill tree point
With a loose plan in mind she finished her ration and headed over to the bind point. She used the fast travel option and was instantly transported into the bowl of yesterday’s boss fight. She slowly made her way down the stairs. Being cautious is usually a good idea. She walked through the landing and onto the bridge and saw Vergie dozing in a bright patch in the middle of the bridge.