by G. Akella
"Beer? Moonshine?" the demon accepted the scroll, but was in no apparent hurry to open it.
"Where did you get that?" I nodded at the pipe.
"So that's what you're staring at," the demon chuckled for the first time. "Been too long since your last smoke, has it? I've got a spare one for sale—one gold and it's yours. I'll even throw in a few pouches of tobacco."
Fast forward five minutes, I was sucking in tobacco smoke with abandon while sipping on dark beer at one of the tables. Things were beginning to look up. Now if only there was also an amenable young lady to... I glanced at the barmaid scurrying past with a tray, and sighed as I took another sip. No, not now. First I needed to speak with Gerid and figure out my next steps.
If memory served me right, the next melee combat upgrades started at level 110, which amounted to 10 talent points if counting to 200. Plus Jump and Step through Darkness at 100, 150 and 200—another six. Then there were the portals—10 talent points were needed just to learn the first level of the skill. This made sense: if you want to move quickly, you've got to sacrifice something. The first level was the portal that teleported only the caster; the second level, achieved at level 150, could teleport a group of five once per day; finally, at level 200 you received a normal portal that could teleport any number of people. With the caveat that the aforementioned "any number" had all of five minutes to run through the portal before it faded. Whoever didn't make it had to wait till the next day. Basic math showed that at level 200 I would have as many as 84 talent points left for allocation. Funny, players typically bemoaned their lack of points, but I had more free points than dirt. Ugh, it looked like I had little choice but to become a full-fledged mage after all.
Your reputation has increased. Gerid, the owner of The Learned Troll hotel, relates to you with respect.
Ten or so minutes later the proprietor came up to my table, apparently having read the letter.
"Come with me, light one. I sense a long conversation between us." He was replaced at the bar by a young guy who was glancing my way with curiosity.
Gerid led me into a spacious room and motioned at an armchair beside a black coffee table with ornate legs. The entire room was carpeted, which made me wonder if I needed to remove my shoes at the entrance. A writing desk by the window; three dressers, two of them filled with books; several paintings on the walls. Are all the game's innkeepers such odd characters? I thought to myself.
In the meantime, the proprietor took a seat in an armchair across from me, produced two silver glasses and filled them with a dark, viscous liquid. Motioning at one of the glasses with a nod, he kept silent for a while, then looked at me and spoke succinctly:
"Thank you, Krian. For Treis," and he upended the contents of the glass into his mouth.
I followed suit. The beverage was around 50% proof, and the taste reminded me of Martell. I let myself savor the warmth spreading through my body.
"Let's talk business? In the letter Kort requests that I help you, but doesn't specify what exactly is required of me."
"It's hard to explain," I shrugged. "I'm looking for a specific place. Certain things happened there nearly three centuries ago."
I relayed to the demon what I'd told Ylsan the previous day, and also mentioned the inspection at the gates. Upon hearing the name of the agent interviewing me, Gerid chuckled.
"Dar Annat is one of Prince Ritter's finest. And the prince heads one of the dominion's most prominent magistrates."
"Gerid, who are punishers?"
"In Erantia you have the imperial guard. This is our rough equivalent. One major difference is that your servicemen consider is scandalous to serve on the police force, whereas here it's considered an honor. Kort and I served in the same legion, but we often crossed paths with Ritter's Gray Tunics."
The demon poured us another round, and we drank.
"Lakians may be real sons of bitches, but their brandy is incomparable," he declared. "Now, about your quest... I would try looking in the old archives. The only problem is, they're located in the ruined section of the citadel's west wing. About a century ago there was a big explosion at the research center, resulting in a terrible fire. A shady story, that one. Some say the mages had mixed up some volatile spells. There were no survivors to explain what really happened—all of them perished that night. Following the incident, the next research center was moved outside the city for safety considerations."
"So nobody knows what happened?"
"Nobody cares to know," Gerid chuckled. "When the work crews cleaned up the rubble, all manner of vermin started pouring from it. Nothing too serious, but too much of a bother just the same. The dominion was at war at the time, there wasn't any money budgeted for restoration, so that section was simply sealed off." The demon fell back in his chair, produced a tobacco pouch and proceeded to stuff it. "The section is adjacent to the prison complex," he continued. "And the guards often report hearing all kinds of sounds coming from that direction. Not that I believe them—when you booze as much as they do, you start hearing things even in an outhouse, never mind a prison."
"You mentioned vermin—what are we talking about?" It sounded like I would need to go there myself, and I wanted to be prepared.
"Small stuff," the demon waved dismissively. "Mice, rats, toads, sickly pups and the like. The eggheads had a whole menagerie in there. That section wasn't sealed off right away, and the mages scoured every inch of the space after the war. Some labs hadn't been impacted at all. All the valuable stuff was salvaged, but the archives? Nobody cared for them but old Prant. I also heard that the place was filled with powerful death magic emanations. Could be the reason why a whole section of a palace wing never was restored."
"How do I find this place?" I asked.
"I'll mark the location of the entrance on your map. As to how to get inside or for the blueprints of the premises, only Master Prant can help you. That's the senior archivist. He's a decent old man, but certainly eccentric, obsessed with his documents. He might be able to tell you what you need to know without needing to try the archives."
We drank another round.
"Gerid, what's happening in the dominion? I hear there's a rebellion?"
"All we get is scraps of rumors. Two months ago Prince Vallan captured Alcatta, a neighboring province. Members of Prince Rojen's family, whom he'd managed to send to Nittal by portal, said that several satraps had gone over to the invader, and someone had killed the Alcattaean legate right before the battle. Stripped of its leader, the legion was routed. The prince himself is probably dead, since he was sending his family through the portal just as Vallan and his people infiltrated his castle. Clearly, we're dealing with treachery and collusion." The demon emptied the rest of the bottle into the glasses. "That is all the public knowledge we've got. There are also rumors that Vallan now leads two legions, and that he will soon march them on Nittal."
"But why? The central province is stronger than any three other provinces combined. Or am I missing something?"
"Stronger, yes, and our lord is no chump either—Vallan is no match for him. However, currently there are only two legions in the province out of four: the first and the third. The second and the fourth have gone off to the Lakia border, as war can break out there any day." Gerid nodded at the glass. "Go on, last one."
We emptied our glasses.
"Anyway," he continued. "The upshot is that out of eight provinces in the dominion, three—that's Kialla, Skart and Lorta—are involved in the Lakia conflict, while Zorn and Alcatta are rebelling. It isn't clear yet which side those princes will take in this conflict. They say those provinces are teeming with Vallan's agents. Even here in Nittal there's plenty of them—the Gray Tunics have been catching instigators on a daily basis..."
"Haven't the princes sworn an oath?"
"And? Did you forget what blood flows in our veins?"
"Isn't there some kind of oath that would compel even a demon to be true?"
The former punisher was silent for a
good ten seconds, as if picking his words.
"Each one of us has inherited a portion of true Netherworld demon blood—a tiny particle of primordial chaos. Those who had inherited more of it have been able to accumulate great strength and subjugate the rest. There is what's called a Trueblood Oath that would never be broken by a demon with a sufficient amount of it, but I don't know the exact number," Gerid shook his head. "Only that it exists. Much time has passed since the materialization of our plane, so much so that some demoness whose ancestor had migrated here from the Netherworld might have more true blood than any prince. Even putting that aside, there is a flip side to this oath: those to whom it is sworn cannot harm their new liege. Now imagine two provinces at war, and the lord wants to put an end to the butchery. How does he do it if he can't harm the warring factions? You see how these oaths can be tricky. Don't forget where you are, Krian."
"How do you know all this?"
"You think that, as a former soldier, I must be a total dunce?" the demon smirked and nodded over at the shelves overflowing with books. "I got a pretty good education. And the books are rich with knowledge. After all, the manifestation of our plane hadn't deprived any of our ancestors of their memory—they simply became something else. As for running inns and hotels—this is still work," he said while looking around the room, almost guiltily. "Once a punisher, always a punisher."
Well, that made sense—a lord ought to have agents everywhere. One of the Medieval kings back on Earth had been of the same opinion, though I couldn't remember his name. The result had been that nearly all of the country's inns were run by former soldiers.
"So everybody's waiting to see which side the remaining three provinces will take?"
"Not quite. Everybody's wondering if these three provinces might throw their support behind the rebel—same words, different meaning. Because even if two out of the three decide on that route, there may be a significant power shift in the dominion. Having said that, I don't really see it happening."
We hung out for a little longer, then I got up and headed to my room. It was getting dark and I didn't feel like heading out anywhere, so I decided to deal with my talent points. I lit up a cigarette and opened the menu on the monitor.
I would calculate from level 200 as before. My task was to figure out which way to develop further.
I had five unallocated talent points and fifteen stat points. I raised my health by fifteen, and that was the end of that.
And now—talents. 30 points to level 200 would go into portals, six into Jump and Step through Darkness, and 10 into melee attacks. That would make 46; adding up the points yet to be allocated, I counted 130. The remaining number? 84! I had to think logically, as much as I could with my dilettante abilities.
It seemed to me that I should be able to take a warrior or hunter of similar level. Not a hardcore gamer by any means—I wouldn't stand a chance against one of those with my glaring lack of experience. But against others like me, I had a definite advantage. My physical damage output exceeded that of a warrior with a two-handed weapon by almost 50%, and that was with the same armor class. For hunters and ranged dps I was a nightmare; for mages, however...
Mages were trickier, since I'd thrown all my points into strength and physical attacks. I would need to keep them close, since any mage could tear me apart from a distance. Even if all my presently available points went into spells...
But I wasn't going to change course. My mobility was the same, but crowd control was essentially non-existent. I had my answer.
I scanned the options available for mages, specifically water mages (or frost as they were often called). Why frost? The best combination of damage output and control was possible only with the cold specialization.
In Arkon, no one could become the jack of all trades. A warrior couldn't be a top-notch damage dealer and a tank simultaneously; a necromancer couldn't be a master of curses while fielding a undead army. Similarly, elemental mages couldn't truly master two different elements—at least that's how it was before the patch. It was possible, for instance, to be proficient in earth magic and a decent air mage. Thus, a secondary element was developed with the aim of securing certain key abilities; or to have a reserve range of weapons as an alternative when encountering someone immune to your primary specialization.
There were also talents common to all trees, such as portal creation, as well as overlaps between the trees, such as Lava Lake which required earth and fire, but those were few and far between.
The water specialization sacrificed damage output in favor of crowd control, which made it arguably the best in a player versus player situation. So, let us see what we could do with this build.
I had two trees interweaving before my eyes: water and ice. As I'd already mentioned, the ice specialization was the more popular of the two, by far. Despite the fact that at level 150 a Water Disc dealt 10% more damage than Ice Spear, most folks still chose the path of ice due to the fact that the same spear could be boosted by secondary talents that would also slow the target by 40% on impact with a 5% chance of freezing them for five seconds. In fact, ice magic conferred the same slowing benefit to all offensive spells, from spear to boulder, whereas water didn't.
So, what did we have for crowd control spells? I scanned my available talents and found five: Morph, Silence, Bound by Frost, Ice Chains and Ice Shackles.
Transform. Available to all specializations, two second cast time. Transforms a living opponent into a similarly sized animal for one minute. Usable against only one target at a time. The caster does not need to be in combat. The transformed foe cannot attack or cast spells. Range of spell—40 yards. Any damage taken breaks the effect.
As I understood it, the point of this spell was to neutralize for a while one opponent out of any given group. Any way you slice it, it's better to face off against two mobs instead of three. A good skill to have, and cheap at only 10 points: five for the connecting talents and five more for Morph itself.
The talent tree was designed in a way that you couldn't simply throw a point into any talent and learn it. Most were only available after investing at least one point into each of the talents leading up to the one you really wanted. And there was no way of circumventing the rules. Gamers were a crafty folk by default, and this was especially true of us Russians. Koreans were the opposite—law-abiding and remarkably assiduous. God forbid anybody take offense—Russia had plenty of hard workers as well. But here's the thing about the science of statistics—it's uncompromising.
You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to realize the easiest path was to ask your friends to powerlevel you to level 100, at which time you would throw your first point into Ice Spear or Water Disc (in the case of a mage) and become super duper powerful while retaining a whole heap of available points. For that very reason the best talents were typically reserved for the last slots of various connecting branches. In the case of Morph there were only five, which wasn't too many. But I digress.
Silence. Like Morph, available to all specializations. Instant cast. Prevents the target from casting any spells for a period of ten seconds. Range—100 yards. Cooldown—one minute. Damage sustained does not break the effect.
As with Morph, ten talent points were required to learn: five for the connecting talents and five for the actual skill. Most importantly, the spell could be used in combat. Awesome! This factor made the talent a must-have.
Bound by Frost. Silence that also pins the opponent for up to six seconds at the spell's highest level. The affected target cannot move or cast spells. Any damage taken breaks the effect.
Thirty connecting talents and five into the skill itself. Maximum mastery available at level 120. I could see the utility here: catch a mage, charge him and hack away with Ice Blade or Tongue of Flame. Of course, the very first strike would break the effect, and any mage with a decent pain tolerance could simply Jump away and start playing hard-to-get. Plus, a one minute cooldown.
Ice Chains. Essentially Bound by Frost min
us the silence.
Simply pinned the opponent in place. No, that wouldn't do.
Ice Shackles. One of frost mages' most potent weapons. Instant cast. At the skill's maximum level, all enemies within a 12-yard radius of the caster freeze to the ground for ten seconds if their cold resistance is less than 75%.
Moreover, all pinned opponents suffered damage equal to the caster's primary stat. Cooldown—30 seconds. Damage taken may break the effect, but the likelihood is unknown.
Cool story! Pin everybody in place and focus fire till they're all dead. Not a sound strategy against hunters and other mages, but potentially deadly against warriors, rogues and other melee fighters. And if something goes wrong, bind them, Jump away and sprint your way to safety.
An excellent spell, but painfully expensive with the first tier only available at level 50. The second tier opened up at level 75 and required ten connecting points to get there. In all, the spell required 45 talent points to max out at level 150. Of course, all connecting talents strengthened the ability, increasing the effective radius, damage and so on. The chain of secondary skills also branched out toward Ice Spear—a definite plus if building a frost mage. For me, however, the value of this spell was questionable—it worked best against melee fighters, and those I feared least of all. What I needed was a similar ability but with a longer range.
I got up from the desk and started pacing around the room—I found it was easier to think that way. Silence and Morph were obvious, but I questioned the utility of the other spells in the water school of magic. Clearly, theorycraft wasn't my forte. Besides, I'd never played a mage before. Truth be told, I hadn't really played a warrior either.
But wait, why was I so fixated on water? I should be considering other schools as well. I sat back down and peered into the monitor.