She’d just remembered the other new addition to the death penalty. She was now going to start leaving items behind.
Devon yanked open her inventory and equipment screens and sighed in relief when she saw she still had the two Ishildar relics that had been equipped when she died.
Then she noticed what was missing.
A pair of—at this point—fairly dated Superior Medium Leather Trousers. She gasped in horror as she looked down at her bare legs and the tiny suede booty shorts that were the default undergarments.
“Oh, hell,” she said, cheeks hot. “I didn’t notice until now…”
“I wasn’t about to say anything. Makes me glad I’m still level 19.”
Groaning, Devon pulled her backup leg armor from her rucksack, a tattered pair of Boarhide Trousers. Rolling awkwardly, she managed to drag them on over her boots.
You know, with the death penalty debuff, your Dignity is -6.
Devon clenched her jaw. Fricking a-hole game.
Torald, ever the paladiny gentleman, turned his back and pretended to be highly interested in the construction projects underway in Stonehaven. As Devon buttoned the pants, a few more players materialized around the shrine. Around half were over 20 and staggered under the sudden debuff, whereas the others shuddered after the death experience and examined damaged armor, but mostly shook off the experience.
“So,” Torald said, turning around after a quick glance to make sure she was decent, “weren’t you saying you’d made an attempt to deal with the awakening stones?”
Devon blinked. She and Hazel had made the one trip, but she hadn’t mentioned it to any of the players.
Torald smirked, apparently noticing her confusion. “Or at least, that’s what the rumor mill said.”
She dropped her head forward. Right. People were watching her every move since their major quest line apparently depended on Devon’s actions.
“We kind of got into a standoff with one of Ishildar’s Stone Guardians last attempt. And then ran into some woman who claims she’s a prophetess of Veia.”
“Wait, what?” Torald said, his eyes going abruptly distant, the universal expression of a player looking at their UI.
“Shavari. She’s a priestess from near Eltera City.” Now that she mentioned the woman, Devon stood and scanned the settlement. What had happened to her anyway? With everything else that was going on, Devon hadn’t put much thought into the woman’s demand—er…quest—for proof that Devon was the chosen Champion of Ishildar. A buff and the ability to identify items would be nice, but satisfying the priestess’s request was hardly Devon’s priority right now.
When she returned her attention to the steadily growing group of freshly spawned players, Devon blinked in surprise. Literally everyone had the distant “checking my interface” look.
“I’m guessing she’s part of your quest?” Devon asked.
Torald, still distant-eyed, nodded. “Yeah, so that explains how we were supposed to satisfy this particular step. The objective is to find a Veian priestess who will guide us toward advancing the champion’s cause.”
“Okay…Well, grats. She’s floating around here somewhere.”
“Like, levitating?” one of the other players, a woman clad in rogue’s gear, asked.
Devon took a breath. She wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or be annoyed. “I mean, she’s hanging out. And speaking of ambiguous quests, she’s asked me to somehow prove that I’m the champion.”
“I can see how that would be difficult, considering,” another player said. Devon turned to face him and saw that it was the cleric from her group. She hadn’t noticed his health bar becoming active again when he’d respawned in range of her.
“Because the game is obsessed with vague missions?” she asked.
The cleric hesitated as if unsure what to say. “I was thinking more of the evil presence clinging to your body. An inconvenient detail when trying to persuade a priestess of the goddess of life that you’re one of the good ones.”
“What?” Devon said, crinkling her face up. “Evil presence? My gear?” Even as she glanced down at the armor pieces that incorporated demon skin scraps, a strong suspicion rose.
The man shrugged. “Beats me. It’s just a shadow that shows up when I cast Detect Evil. I used it back in the camp hoping to get some info about the beaver-freaks. Was kind of surprised to see the effect on you.”
Devon sighed. “I think I might know what the problem is. I’m working on it.”
“Well, we all have our secrets I’m sure. But since you’re pretty much carrying around the mark of the beast, I can see why the priestess would be skeptical.”
Quest Updated: Prove your worth.
As a high-level priestess, one of Veia’s five prophets, is willing to aid you in your quest for restoring Ishildar. But without a vision to guide her, she needs proof before committing her support.
Update: You have discovered that Zaa’s touch upon your soul is part of the problem when it comes to dealing with Veia’s clergy. Makes sense, right?
Devon sighed and brushed away the popup. Well, if nothing else, she had a little more clarity on that quest. Of course, according to Emerson, they needed to gently guide Owen out of the demonic plane before the full patch that would once again isolate players’ implants and minds from Zaa’s influence could be applied.
Which basically pointed back to Devon becoming Ezraxis or some close relation and jumping through a planar rift to track Owen down.
She sighed and stood, examining her gear for damage. Seeing her old and tattered Boarhide Leggings reminded her that she was due for some genuine upgrades anyway. She’d have to pay a visit to Gerrald and his leatherworking cohorts shortly.
“The rodents are almost wiped out,” a newly respawned player said. “And by the way, you guys sure know how to welcome a new arrival.”
Devon experimented with moving her limbs through their range of motion as she turned to face the newcomer. Her debuff only had seven minutes remaining. Since she had to run back to retrieve her pants anyway, she might as well help mop up the shape-shifting creeps.
The sight of the player brought a strange flash of déjà vu. He seemed so familiar, but she was sure she’d never seen him before. The man wore a ridiculously flamboyant cape crusted with beadwork and embroidery, and the fabric of his tunic was slashed to show multicolored glimpses of silk. A gauzy scarf wrapped his neck, pinned with a gold-and-emerald bauble.
Unable to help herself, she examined him.
Character: Genovini
Level: 22
Base Class: Troubadour
Specialization: Unassigned
Unique Class: Mind-bender
Health: 780/780
Voice: 10/12
Of course. A bard. Now that she looked more closely, she spotted a harmonica holstered on his belt where most players attached their weapons. He probably had some harp or something under his cape.
More interestingly, he also had a unique class. So far, Chen was the only other person she’d met who had received one. Of course, maybe it was a consolation prize for choosing a bard-type class.
Of course, she couldn’t help herself from snarking. It was just too easy. “Glad to know the entertainment has arrived. Welcome. Stonehaven has a poet. You could start up a troupe.”
He gave her a flat stare. “You haven’t changed much.”
Devon blinked. She squinted. It seemed that first flash of recognition hadn’t been off base. She was obviously familiar to the man, so he was probably from her old Avatharn guild. His unique class probably meant that he’d been recruited by Emerson, so he’d likely starred in Hailey’s clandestine livestream of their battle with the bog serpent queen. Owen was currently a demon lord or something. She didn’t think Maya, the woman who had played the group’s halfling summoner, would choose to play a male character. Which left just one choice.
“Sorry. It was hard to recognize you when f
ully in phase with the physical realm and dressed like a peacock.”
Jeremy, her friend who had played a planar priest in Avatharn, rolled his eyes. “I made a bet with Maya about how much shit you guys would give me over my class.”
Devon understood why he looked so familiar now. Sure, in Avatharn, he’d spent half his time out of phase with the material plane in order to draw energy from other realms. But the shared body language between the translucent figure he’d cut in Avatharn and the opulently-garbed minstrel before her was clear as day when she paid attention.
She scanned the crowd, inspecting the women in search of another flash of recognition. “Is she here?”
“Maya?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “This is going to sound a little nuts, but she’s some kind of mermaid queen. I take it we all spawned outside the normal starting areas… Maya just happened to roll the weirdest of all.”
“A queen?”
He shrugged. “She started as a princess.” At this, he had a hard time keeping a straight face. Devon understood; princess and Maya weren’t words she’d expected to hear together. Ever.
“So you guys stayed in touch outside the game?”
He hesitated, probably remembering their pact during Avatharn’s shutdown. Devon had asked that they make a clean break. Otherwise they’d probably always be living in the past. Life had to go on, with or without the game. For whatever reason—according to Hailey, it had been due to Devon’s tendency toward overbearingness—the group had agreed.
After learning about Hailey’s livestream, it didn’t surprise her to learn that, like Hailey and Chen, Jeremy and Maya had stayed in contact. A few weeks ago, Devon would’ve felt betrayed by this, but in the course of forgiving Hailey for the livestream, she’d concluded that it really didn’t matter.
“I’m over it, in case you’re wondering,” she said.
A look of relief washed over his face as he smoothed a ringlet from his forehead. “During Avatharn downtime Maya and I used to have the occasional RTS faceoff. Old-school non-VR. Taking a break from the immersion was nice. I had her gamertag from some of the ladders. When Emerson turned up at our houses—which was freaky, right—we got in touch and talked about whether we should do it.”
Devon nodded. That would have been nice, having someone she could tell about the offer. She’d been more than a little creeped out by Emerson showing up on her bus armed with a whole lot more personal information than she’d liked to think about someone having.
“So you were in touch, but you didn’t try to meet up in-game?” Devon asked.
All at once, Jeremy lost his slippery grip on his composure. He burst out laughing. “If you tell her I think her situation’s funny, I’ll kill you. Literally. There’s not a lot of restrictions on PvP in this game.”
Devon grinned, ready for a good story. “So spill it.”
Her friend planted his hands on his knees and leaned forward to try to get his laughter under control. “It’s her tail. When Relic Online decided to make her a mermaid, it wasn’t some nod in the direction of the legend. The whole mermaid thing is full-on. She can walk on two legs, but it’s just like in the stories. If she doesn’t get back to water every few hours, she’ll basically turn half-fish and be left there flopping until somebody carries her to a pool.” A tear leaked from the corner of his eye as he started cracking up again. He wiped it away with a silk glove.
Devon tried to feel bad for Maya, who she couldn’t help envisioning as an awkwardly shaped halfling mermaid considering that the other woman had been just three feet tall the whole time she’d known her in their last game. But the whole thing was funny.
She settled for a combination of laughing and grimacing. “So she’s stuck out in whatever area is friendly for fish people?”
Jeremy nodded. “It’s some island in the middle of a giant ocean. No one on the forums seems to have it on their world map, and Maya has only explored the area for a day’s swim in any direction. She has no idea where she is relative to the rest of us.”
“At least the merpeople of this obscure island made her queen. That has to count for something, right?”
He shrugged. “Small consolation, I think, for being trapped. Though to be fair, it’s not like she only has this tiny little island to play on. I guess she spends most of her time adventuring underwater with her subjects.”
Devon’s attitude about players had been shifting—they weren’t the worst thing to happen to the game world—but still that didn’t sound too bad. Adventuring with NPCs could be so much less complicated. She imagined that she and Maya would have a lot to talk about regarding their feelings on whether the game’s NPCs were self-aware.
Most of the respawned players had gathered near the start of the path that led through Stonehaven to the main gate. They kept glancing toward Devon as they milled around. Torald, especially, seemed to be trying hard to remain patient. But the tightness of his jaw suggested he really wanted to get back to the action.
“Up for running back? I don’t know how long it’s been since I had a genuine corpse run.” It wasn’t actually a corpse run, a mechanic from some other games where a player had to return to their slain body to retrieve everything they’d had when they died, but the idea was similar.
Jeremy sighed heavily. “Yeah, no shit. Dropping items sucks.”
“At least you spawned with pants on. Anyway, the penalty makes you appreciate staying alive, right?”
He snorted. “No pants, huh?” He glanced down at her tattered leggings. “No offense, but you’re kind of a hottie. I doubt anyone objected.”
Devon groaned. “Thankfully, my Charisma was debuffed from the death penalty. Otherwise there’d be pools of drool around the shrine.”
Flipping his cape over his shoulder, Jeremy smirked. “Kinda funny. I never figured you for the vain type.”
“Yeah, well in my defense, it’s not my fault. I got railroaded into taking the sorcerer class, which meant I had to focus on Charisma for my mana pool.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you really trying to defend your choice to spend so many points on Charisma to a troubadour? Obviously, there are benefits in maxing the stat for someone like me, but you don’t see me playing booth babe in front of Pod People locations nationwide.”
Devon felt her blush all the way to the tips of her ears. “Oh lord. You saw that?”
“I think every gamer in western civilization saw that. Actually…doesn’t Pod People have locations in Tokyo, too?”
Jaw clenched, she pulled up her messenger app, intent on sending Emerson an irate message. But a note from Tamara gave her just enough distraction to stop the impulse. Her friend wanted to follow up—again—about whether Devon had had any luck talking to the company about the joint promo. With a deep breath, Devon closed the app. The Pod People event was over anyway. No use pitching a fit at this point.
“As I was saying,” Jeremy said, “I could have maxed Charisma to amplify my class abilities. But my Constitution is just as high. So I maintain that you must like the attention.”
Devon rolled her eyes, lengthening her stride as her boots hit the first of the cobblestones out of Stonehaven. “It’s not my problem if you choose a suboptimal character build.”
He laughed. “I guess we’ll just have to disagree.”
“So speaking of corpse runs, what did you drop when you died?”
He sighed. “Stupid game decided I should leave my weapon behind. My most prized possession. I hate to think of it lying forlornly in the grass.”
“I was wondering about that, actually,” Devon said. “Are bards melee fighters or pure support or what? And you have to tell me about this Mind-bender class.”
“Fair enough. But I think I’d rather you see my elite skills in action than try to explain them.”
Devon suppressed a smirk. “You mean you don’t want to describe them to me in song? I figured you’d already have a ballad
written up about yourself.”
“Listen, jerk. I don’t sing. And if I did, it would be earthshaking.”
“More like ear-shattering.”
Chapter Sixteen
CHEN HAD BEEN helping out with the construction on one of Prester’s projects, a specialty tailoring shop that would—apparently—give Emmaree and the other tailors a big boost to rare pattern discovery and general production efficiency. In the process, he’d gained 3 skill points in Carpentry to go along with his 2 points in Blacksmithing, 4 in Cooking, and 1 in Manual Labor. Every night, he stuck the values into his spreadsheets, noting the amount of time he worked at each task and the difficulty of the particular plan or recipe he’d been working on. He told himself it was useful, that by deconstructing the formulas for progression in the various trade skills, he could prepare a report for E-Squared on Veia’s effectiveness. Or at the very least, he’d be armed with authoritative information when hitting the sub-forums dedicated to this kind of stuff. In other games, he’d been something of a celebrity among the min-maxing crowd, those players who obsessed about optimizing their character performance.
But the truth was, after the encounter on the beach with the tormented humans, he hadn’t been all that interested in combat or violence. Wasn’t there enough of that in the real world—and in its in-game reflection? While he still wanted to advance his character and enjoy the feeling of moving forward and experiencing the game, he just wished it didn’t have to be so…killing-focused. And there was something else. Those poor people on the beach. The terrible expressions on their faces. Sometimes when he walked past his sister, Mei, on one of her low days, the look on her face was just too close to what he’d seen at the shore. Far too close.
Carpentry didn’t just give him a chance to skill up. It gave him something else to focus on. He enjoyed the satisfaction of aiming a hammer blow just right. Of watching the building emerge from disconnected pieces. He was lining up another nail, holding it between two fingers in preparation for another strike when Devon walked by in animated conversation with a player he didn’t recognize—at first.
Citadel of Smoke: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 4) Page 13