The Dragon's Revenge

by Conor Kostick

Chapter 21

  Plan B

  On arrival at Yuno HQ the following morning, I saw Sapentia entering just ahead of me and ran to share the lift with her. Whereas I had pretty much rolled out of my bed, into the shower, and then into my T-shirt and jeans, she must have been up a while, for as always, she looked amazing: stripy purple and black tights, like a Halloween witch’s outfit; black leather skirt with floral scrolling; white blouse with large collar and cuffs emerging from a black leather bodice, which had long leather sleeves attached. The effect was a lot like a rogue’s outfit from Epic, except for her make-up and hair, which was pure rave. Two ponytails stood out from the sides of her head; her face was white, as was her neck, all the way down to her throat, with exotic deep purple eye designs, like those on Egyptian sarcophagi.

  ‘Oh, good morning, Tyro.’ Sapentia stabbed a finger into the button for level twenty-four.

  I tipped my head towards her, a little bow. ‘Good morning. Are you still mad at me?’

  ‘Small amount. You are young. Young make mistakes. Older men should know better.’

  ‘Are you talking about Braja? Are you mad at him? Still okay to group with him?’ Stupidly, I found myself talking in short sentences, the way she did.

  Our eyes met in the copper-effect mirroring of the lift’s interior, so that it seemed I was looking at a different Sapentia, in a dimension one step away from our own. The extra-dimensional Sapentia appeared distant and world-weary. ‘All is fine, Tyro. I learn that Western men are as useless as Japanese men. Experience will make for good blog and dating advice to emotionally stunted military types.’

  ‘I’ll enjoy reading that. I suspect Braja might not.’ I smiled and was relieved to see her respond in kind.

  In the foyer before the Den, the young Yuno woman who had given me orientation on the day of my arrival was waiting for me. Verity? I should have made more of an effort to remember her.

  ‘Oh Tyro, at last, Katherine would like to brief you before the meeting. Follow me please.’

  ‘Can you come too, Sapentia?’

  ‘Hai.’

  Felicity - I was pretty sure - took us to a briefing room. No view, just glass table and metal-framed chairs.

  There was a coffee station on a sideboard, which Sapentia strode over to, her strong boots clacking on the hard floor.

  ‘Anyone else want?’ She looked at me, then to Katherine and Blackridge, who were sat at the table, open folders in front of them.

  ‘Me please,’ I answered, taking a seat, ‘black, two sugars.’

  ‘I’m good, thank you.’ Katherine smiled at us, while Blackridge tipped his square head up and said nothing. It was hard to see him as anything but trouble; impossible to share a sense of comradeship and common purpose.

  When we were both settled, Katharine invited us to look at the documents she had prepared. ‘You can have mine.’ She slid a clear plastic folder across the table to Sapentia.

  Inside were some nicely laid out plans, which even had images from the game to decorate them. Someone had been busy. Each plan was on a different coloured sheet, the one headed Master Bowyer had a light green background.

  ‘Shall we start with the Master Bowyer?’ Katharine asked me, having seen me hold it up.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You’ll notice that we need someone with a high dexterity and spirit to maximise the ratio of skill increases per combination attempt. I’ve been conservative and assumed a slightly below-average success rate.’

  According to the diagram, the most efficient path to becoming a Master Bowyer was to attempt combinations in this order: crude hickory bows to skill level 15; simple iron-tipped arrows to 25; crude red oak bows to 45; fine steel arrows to 70; decent hickory bows to 90; decent red oak bows to 105; Arrows of Piercing to 120; high quality hickory bows to 130; high-quality red oak bows to 140; Flaming Arrows to 160; Arrows of Destruction to 180; superb hickory bows to 205; superb red oak bows to 220; Arrows of Lightning to 230; Rackrod’s Bow of Striking to 245; Scintillating Bow of the Stars to 255; Sir Lockwood’s Bow to 265; Bow of the Elements to 275; Bow of Seeking to 285; Astral Bow to 295; and, finally, Doomstriker to 300. Easy.

  Except the materials required for these attempts were not simply foraged ones, the more complex items, like Flaming Arrows, needed feathers from Firehawks, a sorcerer of sufficient level to create firesteel ingots and a blacksmith to make arrow heads from this imbued metal as well as the necessary tools. That blacksmith would have to be at least skill 150 to be sure of success and he or she would, in turn, need various foraged materials, common and rare to skill up to that level. The estimates for the number of basic ingredients we needed to farm for this project was massive and my eyes ran across figures like 44,000 long sticks; 14,000 carts of iron ore; 8,000 bird feathers, 5,000 reels of hemp cord; and 3,000 bags of flour.

  Then there were the rare drops. We’d need to farm three large regions plus a raid zone for a variety of ingredients for the high-level bows. My group would take on The Tower of the Jewelled Skull, where we could grind out our levels at the same time as collecting Soulstones and Ornate Glowing Feathers.

  When she was sure we had taken in the information on the charts, Katharine said, ‘For the basic farming alone, I think we need sixteen players on this task.’

  ‘Noted,’ I replied. Then I looked over at Blackridge, whose heavy face was unshaven. Was he bored? Or just tired. ‘Did we get that many volunteers?’

  ‘Here’s the list.’

  In contrast to Katharine’s careful preparations, Blackridge showed me a simple typed sheet. Only eight players had volunteered for gathering. Oh well.

  ‘Do we know who would make the best Master Bowyer?’ I asked, looking from the dour expression of Blackridge to the grey eyes of Katharine, eyes that sparkled with intelligence.

  ‘Scarlet, a level twenty-seven hunter has consistently put her attribute points into Dexterity and Spirituality. She is leading in that regard.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I’m not sure she has enough though. It might be sensible for her to level up at least to forty.’

  ‘We can give buffs and give potions to help attributes, even if temporary,’ Sapentia pointed out.

  Katharine nodded. ‘Oh, indeed, it’s just that when she attempts Doomstriker, we really want to do all we can to minimise failure and especially the possibility of a fumble that costs us the rare ingredients. My belief is that while we are gathering items, she can keep levelling, at least for a week, without this meaning any loss of time in her Bowyer.’

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked Sapentia.

  My friend shrugged. ‘Sounds okay.’

  ‘Right so, have you told Scarlet about this?’

  ‘I thought perhaps you should, now you are leading the project.’ Katharine was looking downwards. Anywhere but Blackridge huh?

  ‘Fine. But Katharine, I’ll be in the game most of the time. I’d like you to co-ordinate from the outside…and implement this plan.’ I indicated the coloured sheets. ‘It’s superb work, it really is.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She glanced at her tablet. ‘It’s nearly time for the meeting.’

  Blackridge stood up and I had pushed my chair back when I was surprised by Sapentia leaning forward and speaking. ‘Wait. One more item. What’s really going on here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ grunted Blackridge.

  ‘Yuno doesn’t make game it can’t hotfix.’

  There was silence. I studied Katharine (anxious, watchful) and then Blackridge (sullen).

  Sapentia tried again. ‘Who really made Epic Two?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Blackridge. ‘We did.’

  ‘We’d better go.’ Katharine moved to the door and held it open for us.

  Catching my eye, Sapentia gave a slight shake of her head, meaning she didn’t believe Blackridge. Obviously, I was on her side and I did feel like I wasn’t seeing the full picture. At the same time, it didn’t seem likely that anyone else had built the game, so what did she
mean?

  As before, the Den was full of players and there was a temporary stage set up at one end. This time, there was a seat for me between Katharine and Blackridge, which I took, feeling somewhat nervous under the gaze of so many people. Already at the podium, Watson gave me a warm smile through his beard, then tapped the microphone until he had everyone’s attention.

  ‘Today, we move to Plan B. Plan B is mostly a crafting route to success.’ And he explained about the Arrows of Dragon Slaying. There was a certain amount of restlessness; by now, everyone knew the principles of the plan and, I suppose, they were anxious to find out their roles in it. I would be.

  Sensing this, Watson raised a hand, thick fingers spread. ‘Mr Blackridge wants to say a few words, then I’ll hand you over to Tom Foster, Tyro, for the details.’

  At the mention of my name, I felt my stomach clench. It wasn’t easy, having to speak in front of so many people. People who I felt were still largely unsympathetic, despite the success of last night’s raid. There was one way to get through this though, which was to treat the situation like I was in-game, organising a raid.

  Glancing at a small notecard, which he stuffed into his pocket, Blackridge rose and went to the microphone. ‘As you know, I haven’t always agreed with Tyro as to the best approach to our challenge. We are a team, however, all of us here, and we all want the same result. With the unforeseen tactics of the dragon and her allies, it’s time to change our approach and as Tyro has demonstrated, he’s exactly the right person to lead us. I want everybody to be clear, he has my full support.’

  To my mind, the whole of this speech, which was delivered hurriedly and without genuine inflexions, was actually saying: I hate saying this, but I have to get it over with. Perhaps that was just me. In any case, the important thing was he had officially declared a truce between us. Hopefully, that would get his supporters to fall in line instead of undermining the plan.

  No one had clapped, until Watson stood up to lead a smattering of applause. Then he gestured to me to take the podium. It wasn’t easy standing up and I knocked into the microphone as a result of lurching too quickly.

  Looking out around the room, there were plenty of smiling, encouraging faces and not just from my own group. There were still plenty of frowns though too. I was under no illusions about my situation. It was like during the early days of my leading raids in Epic; there were plenty of people who thought they could do better and who would be quick to pull me down.

  ‘Firstly, so long as the dark elves keep their army in Fort Hellsmouth, we have to abandon the characters trapped there. If you are one of them, for now, start afresh with a hunter or a druid and join the basic foraging teams.’ Without trying to justify myself, I jumped right into allocating the boring jobs of collecting wood, iron, flour and the other ingredients we needed. There were audible, disconsolate sighs as I announced various names, working my way up from the lowest levels. Helpfully, Katharine was tapping on her tablet and revising the large screen to show the letter W before the name of all the wood collectors, the letter M before the mining team and so on. Scarlet got a designation all to herself, MB, but whether she was pleased or not with the role I couldn’t tell. No one in the audience gave a visible response when I declared her Master Bowyer.

  The more interesting roles were those for three groups in the three zones we needed to work for rare drops. The Tower of the Jewelled Skull, The Undersea Ruins of Asthraxia and the Desert of Endless Screams. In both Epic and Epic 2, the best size of group for experience gain was seven. That’s because there was a small exp bonus to encourage social play, the bonus increased up to a group of size seven and then declined to zero for a group of twelve.

  It was my group that would take on the Tower of the Jewelled Skull. Although reluctant to introduce a stranger to our tight-knit team, I had to add at least one more person to get near the maximum exp bonus. So I announced the group as: Grythiss, shadow knight 14; Sapentia, sorceress 15; myself and Raitha, hunters 13; Braja, cleric 12; and Tuscl, shaman 18. This latter addition was partly because a shaman was a good fit to a group that had a tank, a healer and three DPS. Tuscl could add small backup heals, more importantly she could slow the mobs and had a wide range of buffs for us. It was also because I’d come to admire her during the raid. I liked players who got on with their role but who were also smart enough to improvise appropriately when needed.

  The Desert of Endless Screams was for a group in their 40s and, while lying in bed the previous night, I had decided it was possible for a group to begin there already: Serethina, bard 44; Rubblethumper, warrior 42; Roberta, necro 38; Silva, cleric 37; Rasquelle, rogue 36; Woan, cleric 34; and Oveidio, warrior 32 (group leader). Strictly by level, this group should have included Tombalinor, Bard 44. Two bards, however, did not really make sense and this gave me a good excuse to keep someone that was potentially hostile to me out of a group that otherwise seemed to have a positive attitude. Strictly, too, Serethina should have been the group leader. That, however, would be a waste of Oveidio’s organising abilities and game knowledge as leader of Dreadnought. More importantly, I felt I could count on him in any clash with Blackridge.

  Tombalinor I put in charge of the group that would be exploring The Undersea Ruins of Asthraxia. This was easy to justify as, once over level 38, bards had a water breathing buff that they could cast from the magic of their music. Out of the rest of the players, the remaining ones in their 20s (along with some level 19) I put into exp grinding groups. In two or three weeks, they would be able to gather ingredients from more challenging zones than could the newly created characters.

  With all the tasks assigned, I could see very many more disappointed faces than eager ones. This was hardly surprising, given that only about twenty players out of three hundred had an exciting mission. For everyone else, the project was now much more like a day job. There wasn’t much I could do about this though, apart from invite everyone on the odd raid that we would have to conduct. Taking a step back, I let Watson return to the podium.

  ‘Any questions?’ he asked the room. Immediately, ten or more hands rose up.

  ‘You kept the best job for yourself, didn’t you? There are hunters higher level than you.’

  With an apologetic shrug, meaning he was sorry for the hostility in the question, Watson let me lean back to the microphone.

  ‘I suppose I did. It’s not just about me, though, I know the players I’m grouped with and I know we can level up in time. We’ve played Epic together for years. It seemed like the right thing to do was stay grouped together. And we need Scarlet for the Master Bowyer’s role.’

  Watson pointed to another person with a raised hand.

  ‘I’m a level seventy necro who leads the guild Woebetide in Epic. I didn’t come here to farm sticks for a month. Unless you can offer me something better, I’m gone.’

  ‘I’ll respond to this,’ said Watson to everyone. ‘I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way. Yuno will add three million dollars to the bonus if the dragon is killed. That’s another ten thousand dollars each. Stay on the project and help us complete it and you get twenty thousand dollars.’

  ‘How much is Tyro getting if he kills the dragon?’ someone else asked.

  ‘His original contract hasn’t been altered in any way since he became project leader. He could have asked for more, but he didn’t.’

  I hadn’t even thought about how I would answer such a question before Watson had handled it. Again, I was struck by how sharp he was. On the surface, he was an amiable, stocky and slightly clownish figure. Inside, he was what? Certainly he was sharp. Like the sharps in David Copperfield.

  ‘This isn’t so much a question as a statement. I’m Tombalinor, bard forty-four.’ The man speaking was hard to see among the crowd, he was so short. Middle-aged, tidy black hair with some grey in it and thick eyebrows that made him appear to be scowling when perhaps he wasn’t. ‘As you know, I disagreed with how Tyro ran that last raid. If we’d have all stuck together and kept
on trying instead of bailing, maybe we’d have gotten Molino out. But that’s behind us now. We all have to move forward together. Let’s get on with it.’

  Two or three people applauded.

  ‘Thank you. On that note, perhaps it’s time to take up our tasks,’ suggested Watson and all but one of the remaining hands went down. It was the large, stocky young man who had accosted me in the Den, that time when Braja stepped in and nearly broke his finger. ‘Yes?’ Watson asked.

  ‘This is for Tyro. Isn’t it the case that you cheated in Epic? That you use macros and that you rigged the rolls in your last raid to give gear to your mates?’ The sturdy player swept his dark fringe back and looked about him, flushed and satisfied. Obviously, he felt he’d scored a big hit. And a month ago, this intervention would have hit me hard, like a kick to the stomach. Now, although I still felt the weight of his attack (and my rapidly beating heart was urging me to action), I had firm ground under my feet. I’d told my friends about this and could rely on them. They might not have liked what I did, but I knew they wouldn’t walk out on me.

  ‘Firstly,’ said Watson, his words biting down on the whole room via the microphone. ‘Yuno have the logs for all of Tyro’s play, as we do for everyone here. What’s good enough for Yuno should be good enough for you. Secondly, what are you trying to undermine the project leader for? What’s the point of your questions?’

  ‘I want to hear from Tyro.’ Not as loud now but still with a tone of triumph.

  ‘Very well.’ I leaned in beside Watson. ‘I’ve used attack macros for years, haven’t we all? And in my last raid, the only time I’ve ever done it and I won’t do it again, I used a dice rolling macro to win a shield for my friend.’

  ‘It’s water under the bridge,’ added Watson, ‘what matters is that we are on a results-focused mission. Results,’ he repeated, ‘that’s what matters. And Tyro gets results.’

  Considering there were three hundred people in the room, it was surprisingly quiet. Not even a cough. Inside, I felt a flush of shame, imagining they were judging me. Anger too. Someone from the inside had been gossiping with this kid. Blackridge sat there, staring ahead, expressionless. The sod.