by Taj McCoy El
“What are you talking about?” Mo was quickly becoming frustrated.
“Can’t you figure it out? Your supposed to be the leader,” Mephi grinned
“beep- supposed to be. -boop”
"I think I still hate you guys. Anyway, it looks like we’ll be doing training in the morning and we’ll work on the quest after that.”
“Speakin o’the quest, do you have any oideas?”
"I have a few but I want to work them out before I present them to you.” Mo pushed his chair out and turned to leave.
“beep- Look, he has ideas now. -boop”
"I know, right? he’s growing up so fast.” Mephi rushed over and pulled Mo into a heavily scented bear hug.
“Get off’a me. Gah, your stink is lingering.”
“Sorry about that—not!!!”
“Fine then. I’ll see you all bright and early and we’ll go get some chickens.”
“beep- How early? -boop”
“Well, I guess you’ll just have to keep your peepers and plates open.” Mo said with a shrug.
Bonkers slapped him heartily on the back and said, “That there’s a good’un, it is!!!” His laughter continued following Mo up the steps like a lingering threat.
✽✽✽
Mayah sat on the ground by the fire. Her hair smelled like burning and felt brittle to the touch. The blast had knocked her out for six minutes and left her singed to boot. Needless to say, this had rained on her parade, like a typhoon—in a hurricane—during monsoon. She wished she could take a shower or have an auto clean cycle like the training village dorms, but no. Her hand still stung where the mana backlash had numbed her hand for half an hour. Feeling was finally coming back like a hornet’s nest of pins and needles. It was quite uncomfortable.
The only thing she could do to distract herself from the pain was to go over her design, piece by piece. She had wisely used this time to berate herself continually as she searched for the culprit. She measured the original against the pieces she had added and had deduced the offending items. She was looking at the faulty part now.
The fabric tags with the mana flow instructions had created twenty-eight different feedback loops. Needless to say, that was bad. She remembered swinging the whip around for a minute and then, nothing. She came to with Riker chittering in her ear. Concussion, partial deafness, tinnitus, and her hand almost being blown off. The enchanting gear had saved her fingers, but just barely. The enchanting gear was still usable, but she needed higher level gear asap for the enchantments she was going to get into.
But gloomily and grumpily she had pushed forward. She was using the simulator in her design interface to find the problem. It wasn’t much help only giving her a fifty-fifty chance of finding any flaws. But when she ran the director tags in their current configuration, she came back with a 12% chance of success.
I should’ve used the simulator from the start. But I can only test a few parts of the whole at one time, she wailed internally. That means I need to go all in with conjoin so I can put more things together.
She made new tags with the current directors on them, separating them from one another and ran it through the simulator for a 50% approval rating.
I need to upgrade this clunky piece of crap to help me figure out the rules and physics of this stupid world.
She fell back on the grass kicking and screaming in a sudden fit of frustration
Why does this suck so bad???
She looked around the clearing
Oh, that’s right I’m stuck here while everyone else gets to go home.
She kicked her legs in tantrum again, but there was no power to the kicks, and she wound up looking like a fish trying to flop back into the water. She struggled for a minute, and then lay on her back looking up at the strange stars.
“Oh well guess I better get some sleep. I don’t want to bang my nose again.”
She set an alarm for 07:45MJT and made her palette out of fabric and lay down on it. As soon as her eyes closed, they popped back open, and she sat up.
“Better message mom.”
Mayah.Butler@CrysWeb
4:45 EST
Hey, Mom, I know it’s been just over an hour since I messaged you. Glad you're getting some rest. I’m heading to bed and I’ll message you when I wake up. Love you so much. Give dad a hug for me. And please, please, please send me those reports.
She hit send and lay down, closing her eyes to fight off her growing loneliness.
Day Ten - Ka-kaaws and Clackers
“… something was starting to take shape, out of magic and will. Smoke and bone.”
- Laina Taylor, Author
10.1 Losing Grounds
Robert “Bob” Stultus stepped onto the elevator of his well-to-do sky-rise condominium. The retro brass walls were polished to a mirror sheen. Still shaking off the morning’s malaise he turned to see his haggard expression in the brassy reflection of the closing doors. His head fell listlessly to thump against his reflection in brass, and he lethargically spoke the word, “Lobby,” into his chest. The deep grumbles of his gravelly morning voice soothing his worries for a moment. The elevator dinged in acquiescence and began the descent. He reflected on his previous employments that landed him the cushy job at Attactus.
Cryswire installer and Crystal programmer, then Code Standards regulator, and then Regional Gameplay Implementation and Quality Assurance and Satisfaction Manager, he mentally ticked his progress off.
It was such an easy job…
The elevator descended smoothly, quickly picking up speed. The express elevators for those who lived above the two-hundredth floor were a necessity to avoid a twenty-minute elevator ride with people stopping every other floor. But since it was early, he wouldn’t have to deal with much traffic anyway.
Bob felt his stomach drop from the sudden loss of altitude. It matched the already dropping feeling of his life falling out from beneath his feet. He had spent so much time at work that when his wife left a note that mentioned the word “divorce,” he wasn’t surprised in the least. It felt like the thin veneer holding his entirety was peeling off in pieces to float away with each soft ding of the elevator descending. It was amazing what you could survive if you just had enough coffee.
He pushed his Ever-Grip mug against the wall of the elevator and sighed pulling his hand away. The mug remained where he placed it. It was his small light in a world of pain and misery. The mug was a gift from a friend who knew he hated any coffee but what came out of his own brew pot. The mug helped with polishing jewels out of the dung he usually found in the roughness of his life—only the joy of morning coffee kept him sane. His Ever-Grip mug kept his coffee hot and immobile until he reached for it, even on the days where he had to stand in shoulder high snowdrifts in hell and face Satan himself.
He looked up at his brassy reflection, where the anxious energy and anger built up and he hit the wall with a fist and began to pace like a caged animal.
“One little mistake. How is that enough to get me reamed out like this?” He grimaced at his reflection, and then wilted under the lifetime of accusations he saw reflected in his eyes. He was sure that it was definitely his fault—it was always his fault.
He sighed then inhaled sharply. “How was I supposed to know it was a hack? The AIs were supposed to catch that. Accept one weird code from an old game and—” His fist landed against the wall distorting his mirrored visage for a split second. “I’m not in security—for the love of Pete!!! I’m in compliance, not security!!!” He continued pacing around in the empty brass box. He gave into his disappointment and rage, throwing his arms into the air trying to box with God while his feet kicked down all the devils hampering him with his wild dance of rage.
Of course, the devils and angels involved in the battle were unaware of the raging mote on their backsides. The only one that could see him in this particular situation was himself in his own multiple reflections—and maybe the guard watching the security cameras.
He st
opped and caught his breath, one hand against the wall. The seething became focus, and he hurriedly fixed his combover and straightened his tie. A few deep breaths later a haggard fool walked across the lobby to hail a travwing. He had a dressing down with his superiors this morning and it was not going to be pretty. He stepped up to the taxi stand and a travwing hummed up to the curb, and he got in.
“Attactus Manhattan,” he said to the driver, who nodded and turned to do his job.
Bob relaxed back into his seat for the ten-minute ride. It would be the last rest he would get for a long time. Or he would get tons of free time. Either way, he had a moment of peace to sip his…
“Coffee…” he whined realizing his cup was still stuck to the wall of the elevator.
He threw another tantrum in the backseat that scared the driver enough that he lowered their altitude and threatened to call the authorities. He calmed himself after the driver gave him a few tissues to wipe his eyes and nose. The driver sensing someone having a bad day decided not to make it worse for him. Guilt was always a good motivator for tips.
The driver wished him well as he exited the travwing and Bob thanked the driver and threw more than a few extra credits onto the fare. But Bob knew that not only was this going to be a horrible day, this was going to be a horrible day.
Without coffee.
10.2 Whips and Struggles
Mayah’s alarm woke her much more gently than the coliseum brass section that woke her up yesterday. She lay swaddled in her fabrics and something warm was pressed up against her back. She reveled in the sensation allowing her time in bed stretch on a little longer.
So waaaaaaaaarm…
In her own time, she gently pulled away from the warms knowing that whatever it was couldn’t last. Besides she had a lot to do. The slow motion of rolling over onto her stomach to get up was halted by the sensation of needles pricking into the flesh on her belly.
“Aaaaaach!!! What in the flarf?” she yelled while sitting bolt upright. This caused the warms to roll out onto the grass with a squeak while the needles somehow got pulled into her lap by the swaddled fabric. The needles began writhing and working their way into her skin.
“Ow!!! Shaznabbit!!!” Moving gingerly this time, she moved away from the pinpricks and extricated herself from the folds of her sleepy cocoon and equipped her armor.
A bedraggled Riker glared up at her angrily from the grass and cleaned his whiskers. She opened up the fabric and found Deanna still asleep, even after all the jostling. She was curled up in a ball that made her hair poke out instead of laying flat. Mayah tried to move her, but every time she reached for Deanna, she wound up getting pricked. Mayah decided on gathering the fabric making a sling to pick the rötten snoozer up. Even jostled and picked up, the rötten just snored loudly—well, loudly for a rat.
Mayah turned to place Deanna on the ground but was suddenly startled by the sound of a brass fanfare. Her hands reached up for her ears suddenly which sent the poor sling sleeping Deanna splaying into the air. As she whirled at her maximum height, in that moment before gravity negated her velocity, her eyes popped open.
Mayah realizing what she had done by throwing the rötten in the air, lowered her arms into a scoop to catch the critter. The rötten squealed as gravity asserted its dominance, and Mayah stumbled forward to avert the disaster. She dropped to her knees, underneath the descending rodent and saw the claw reach out to grab for any purchase—in this case for her face. She turned her head and only received a scratch at the corner of her jaw, and then Deanna’s weight dropped onto her forearms and hands.
“Aah-chaaaa cha chaaaaaa…!!!” Mayah yelled out in pain but determined not to let her new friend eat grass she gently but quickly laid Deanna on the ground. She felt the pain in her hands and when she looked at them and saw bits of torn skin but no blood. Deana climbed up into her lap looking into Mayah’s face. Her whiskers rippled and her fur lost the metallic sharpness and somehow seemed to soften.
Deanna then gently licked Mayah’s hands.
“That’s alright girl. I’ll be fine.” She cautiously pet Deanna on her newly softened fur.
She looked around for Riker.
“There you are. Did I scare you?”
A few perfunctory squeaks were all he offered.
“Well, it was her fault.” Mayah pointed at Deanna who gave Mayah a mean look. “Well, it was. From now on no iron spikes in my bed.” Deanna’s expression saddened and Mayah chuckled.
“Soft furry rötten are most definitely allowed.”
Deanna weighed Mayah’s words and saw the sensibility of them and nodded her agreement.
“Okay, before I eat breakfast, I need to remake the whip that exploded last night.”
Riker and Deanna scampered a few feet away from her.
“It won’t blow up again.” The rötten just stared at her incredulously. “At least I hope it won’t blow up again.”
The rötten backed up even more.
“Fine! I’ll let you know when I’m about to activate it …okay?” she huffed.
Riker ran over to Mayah’s foot and put a paw on it while squeaking. He then returned to a safe distance.
Snorting Mayah reached into her bag and pulled out some of the vuurm meat and gave it to them. Unlike the terravole meat this was slimy and there was no way she would eat it without cooking it first. Then she had a thought. Before she handed over the next piece, she took one medium sized bite fighting the urge to gag. She chewed the meat which had a bit of tendon that rolled around in her mouth as she masticated. The rubbery tendon in the slippery and slimy meat made it harder to chew while not vomiting. She finally managed to pulp it enough to swallow it.
Ding!!!
Survivalist Level 2
Ewww… you really ate that raw lizard meat??? Well, that’s disgusting. Congratulations… on getting salmonella—maybe…
+7% to Constitution
“Some snarky message master is gonna get it,” she yelled into the air.
Keep telling yourself that.
THE… Snarky Message Master.
Oh, and thanks for playing Majesta.
DING!!!!
She glanced at the sky with a rolling side eye and shook her head. Personalized indeed… She then placed a few more hunks of raw meat on the ground.
“This should hold you two until breakfast.” The two rötten dug in while Mayah took stock of her thread supply and found herself happy for the moment.
“Now what if I change the design of the whip to make this one with a core. I can braid six strands up through the center, and then braid the same threads back down the outside. That would create a much better circuit and that might help with controlling the current of the mana. Especially if I covered the core with a thin sheet of fabric as an insulator.”
She thought through the process for a moment and suddenly slapped her forehead. "I need to up my skill trees.”
She pulled up her engineering skill tree and quickly paused at the sad realization before her. So, I have skill tree points AND Class Skill Tree points. I want more Class Skill Tree points!!! I need to upgrade my conjecture. Gotta level my class to get more points. How do I do that?
She went to the forums finally creating her account and looked around for the engineering class sub-forum. There were a few hundred active members but no real data. After doing a few searches and reading a few posts, the one thing she walked away with was use the engineering tabs as much as possible during the build.
Well duh.
She turned her attention to the enchanter’s forum and rummaged through the trending posts. Everyone so far only mentioned the standard skill trees, and she ticked the follow button on a few enchanters who seemed to know their stuff. If anyone had made the leap up through the enchantment tree to unlock other branches they weren’t saying.
I wouldn’t say anything either.
With a few new ideas for her enchanting build she turned to her enchantment skill tree and began studying the list. She noti
ced a small icon in the lower left of her screen that she hadn’t seen before. She clicked it and a flowchart of her whole enchantment skill tree came into view. There was still a level of grayed out boxes beyond her next available choices but she could see a general structure starting.
Well, that’s much better. Being able to see the chart, the first thing she noticed was that she had two main branches. There was the Branch that contained arm and charge, and then there was a branch labeled Auxiliary Skills.
The auxiliary skills were the ones she had unlocked during her fun time with the rötten in the pipe tunnels. She assumed that would have been available higher up in the standard tree but Majesta rewarded those who thought outside of the box. Since the price for the skills were on par with her normal skill tree, she may be getting the better part of this deal. She tapped the triangle on the side of the screen and was rewarded with a view of her engraving skill tree. The Skill Tree points remained the same though.
So I can cannibalize a trade to get skill tree points for another skill. If I did that how much would the trade suffer at higher levels though?
She contemplated that for a minute then thought, guess I’ll have to figure it out. Okay let’s add some points. I have 145 skill tree points to start.
“Gotta start with arm and charge up each of those for 15 points each. And let’s see what I get.”
Arm
Level 2 Enchantment skill tree
Allows the enchanter to arm any object by placing an active essence into the enchanted object. The enchanted object will then have some of the behaviors of the essence. It will also activate any runes that are on the object if they are compatible with the active essence.