Extra Credit
Page 15
I followed the signs to Mine Shaft One and examined the area. It was, in essence, one long spiraling corridor, dotted here and there with veins of copper running through the walls.
I re-summoned my minions and ordering them to guard me while I got down to business. Taking the Beginner’s Mining Pick from my bag, I approached the nearest gleam of copper and focused on the wall, waiting for some sort of interface to pop up.
After a few seconds of watching the rock with no updates I shrugged and decided to try things the old fashioned way. I raised the pick over my head and brought it smashing down into the wall.
It didn’t even leave a scratch, but it did bring up a new system message.
Mining Check – Unsuccessful! – No known ore deposits at that location.
“What?” I said, thinking there had to be something wrong. The wall was obviously copper ore. How could there be no known deposits? I hit the wall again with similar results, this time with an additional prompt.
Mining Check – Unsuccessful! – No known ore deposits at that location.
Would you like to initiate the Mining tutorial? (Yes/No)
I narrowed my eyes and clicked yes.
Welcome to the Mining Tutorial!
This tutorial is designed to introduce new players to the process of Mining. We hope you enjoy your new gathering skill.
QUEST RECEIVED – Mining Tutorial – Stage 1/3 – Prospecting
In order to extract materials using the Mining skill you must utilize the prospecting skill to locate ore deposits available for extraction.
Criteria:
1 – Collect a handful of dirt from the area. (0/1)
2 – Place the dirt in the prospector’s pan. (0/1)
3 – Add water to the pan to separate the ore flakes from the dirt. (0/1)
4 – Examine the results (0/1)
Reward: 50 Mining XP.
“Alrighty then” I said and reached down to collect a pile of loose dirt and rocks from the tunnel floor.
Quest Update – Collect a handful of dirt from the area. (1/1)
I took out the prospector’s pan and added the dirt and water. A set of guide hands similar to those used for spell casting appeared and made a circular motion. I followed the guide, swishing the mixture of dirt and water around and after a few seconds the muddy water started to disappear.
Quest Update – Place the dirt in the prospector’s pan. (1/1)
Quest Update – Add water to the pan to separate the ore flakes from the dirt. (1/1)
I finished swirling the water around until the only thing left was a small collection of copper flakes, arranged in a strange pattern.
Mining Skill Check (Mineralogy) Success! Copper Identified!
Mining Skill Check (Prospecting) Success! You have gained 10 Mining XP!
I tilted my head to the side and the pattern of flakes rose from the pan and superimposed itself onto my map, marking two copper veins in the nearby walls.
Quest Update – Examine the results. (1/1)
Quest Complete – Mining Tutorial – Stage 1/3 – Prospecting
You have gained 50 Mining XP!
So that’s how it works, I thought. Okay, let’s get on with it.
I took my pickaxe and approached the closest node, which was exactly where I was trying to mine earlier, but apparently the game required everything be done in order. Probably made keeping people from Mining above their level easier. You had to be high enough to find the nodes before you could even try to mine them.
I approached the wall, pick in hand and smiled as part two of the tutorial engaged.
QUEST RECEIVED – Mining Tutorial – Stage 2/3 - Extraction
Now that you know where the ore is, you have to extract it.
Use your mining pick to strike the targets presented on the ore.
The closer you strike to the center of the target, the better.
Criteria: Obtain chunks of ore from the Copper Vein (0/10)
Reward: 50 Mining XP.
I focused on the wall and the vein became clear. Several targets appeared on the wall, about five inches across.
A ghostly image of a pick appeared, quickly striking the target on the wall. I slowly moved my pick along the same line, tapping the target dead center, but with minimal force.
Mining Skill Check – Failed!
Gotta put some muscle into it after all, I thought and gave it a good swing, striking the very edge of the circle. But it worked. A small chunk of coppery rock fell to the ground at my feet.
Mining Skill Check – Successful! You have gained 10 Mining XP!
The same target remained for the next couple of swings, and as I chipped away at the vein, I started to get the hang of it. My stamina dropped by a decent amount with every swing, the effort of swinging the heavy pick with my miniature lizard muscles taking its toll, but some progress was better than no progress.
The first strike seemed to be a fluke with the one hit, one ore result. Most chunks took several hits to dislodge, draining a lot of stamina in the process.
By the time I’d acquired my tenth chunk of ore, my stamina was almost zero and I could feel a stiffness in my overworked, digital muscles.
I stretched out my back, hearing a crackling as my spine shifted back into place, and then bent down and collected my hard-earned goods from the floor.
Quest Update – Obtain chunks of ore from the Copper Vein (10/10)
Quest Complete – Mining Tutorial – Stage 2/3 – Extraction
You have gained 50 Mining XP!
You have reached Mining Rank 2!
Nice! Level two already. From what I’d read, the higher your skill, the better metals you could find and mine and the better the chance of getting a chunk with each hit.
Now what, I thought, and the system answered.
QUEST RECEIVED – Mining Tutorial – Stage 3/3 – Smelting
Now that you have extracted ore, you’ll need to smelt it into ingots before it can be used by other crafters. Journey to the nearest forge and use the Crucible to melt the ore. Once the metal is in its liquid form, pour it into the mold to set.
Criteria: Smelt copper ingots from the ore collected. (0/5)
Reward: 100 Mining XP.
The journey up to the surface wouldn’t take that long, but I had no clue how long smelting would take, and according to the clock it was getting close to dinner time, so I decided to stay in the mine and see how much ore I could gather before it was time to go.
After dinner I’d head up to the surface, finish the quest, and then smelt whatever else I’d gathered by then.
My stamina had recharged, so I started thwacking away at the wall again. I zoned out a bit, ignoring the system messages as I played the glorified whack-a-mole game that was Mining, a small pile of ore gathering at my feet.
Before I knew it, my stamina had run out again, so I knelt down to rest and read through the system text I’d been ignoring. I’d gained another level in Mining near the end of the run, bringing me to rank three.
I started collecting the ore and dumping it into my satchel. Halfway through the pile I stopped, confused as I picked up something that didn’t register as ore. Looking at it closely, I noticed a gleam from under a layer of dirt, and as I rubbed it a bit, I was rewarded with another system message.
Mining Skill Check (Mineralogy) – Successful!
I gathered the rest of the ore, twelve chunks in all, and then sat down to rest and review the logs to see what had generated the malachite. Ahh. There it was, on my fifth attempt.
Mining Skill Check – Critical Success! Scavenger skill triggered! You have gained 50 Mining XP!
“Yes!” I exclaimed, glad to see proof that Scavenger worked like I expected it to with normal gathering skills. But the stamina limitation was a lot more annoying than I thought it would be.
Raw numbers on paper were one thing, but having to sit around and watch the stamina bar refill was a lot more… boring… than I expecte
d. Then again, it was in effect a new job. It couldn’t all be fun and games.
I looked around at my skeletons who were standing around, guarding me from any threats. Shaft one was a relatively safe spot, no rats to be seen, but once I descended into the deeper levels, I figured there would be more dangers to challenge my entourage.
I looked at Tiny, my pickaxe wielding minion. No stamina problems for you little guy, I thought with a sigh as I stood back up and faced the vein. There was still a bit of ore left in it, and I was determined to get it before logging out for dinner.
“Ok.” I said, “Focus on the vein, hit the target, and collect the ore. Nothing to it.”
I raised the pick to strike but had to check my string when Tiny got in the way, raising his pickaxe and striking the wall, once every couple seconds. I stared silently, my jaw hanging open as the system messages scrolled by.
Goblin Skeleton (Tiny): Mining Skill Check – Fail. Minion does not possess the necessary skill.
Goblin Skeleton (Tiny): Mining Skill Check – Fail. Minion does not possess the necessary skill.
Goblin Skeleton (Tiny): Mining Skill Check – Fail. Minion does not possess the necessary skill.
I mentally ordered Tiny to stop, and then sat down, a rush of excitement coursing through my veins as I read through the Dark Blessing skill again.
With a massive grin I targeted Tiny and initiated the spell.
I botched the spell the first time, stumbling through the motions in my excitement.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself, starting the spell again in a much more controlled manner.
“Participatur scientia potestas est,” I chanted, following the Karaoke prompts as I performed another set of ritualistic movements around my minion. Glowing glyphs floated in the air, feeding on my mana.
The last step was something new: Blood. Specifically, my own. I used my claws to cut a small gash in my palm, following the spell prompts to trace a glyph upon the skeleton’s brow in my blood.
As I finished the blood glyph, the entire construct flowed inwards and was absorbed into the skeleton, and a new window appeared on my interface.
Please select the Skill(s) to be shared with your target.
Skill Slots available (1): (Unassigned)
My grin was almost wide enough to split my reptilian face in half when my eyes found the Mining skill in the list. If I was playing with a mouse, I probably would have broken it mashing the button to select it.
Confirm Selection for Dark Blessing: Mining? (Yes/No)
“Hell Yes!” I shouted, watching the last of the purple glow settle into the skeleton.
And now for the moment of truth, I thought and commanded the skeleton to mine.
I crossed my fingers as Tiny turned back to the wall and began methodically swinging his pick. Every few hits a chunk of ore fell to the ground and I almost couldn’t contain my excitement.
I’d expected the skeletons to be bodyguards; tools to help me level and survive to reach the resources I needed, but now… the possibilities were incredible!
I watched the logs as Tiny hacked away at the copper vein. Copper ore chunks began to litter the floor, a new one joining them every few swings.
His success rate was about fifty percent, which wasn’t too bad for an automaton. Can’t expect a skeleton to be that talented at whack-a-mole after all.
I chuckled as I ordered Tiny to stop and put the additional ore into my bag. I had a lot to think about over dinner.
A grin still plastered across my face, I dismissed my minions, collecting their skulls and logged out.
***
20
I made myself a quick meal, heating up some of the food my wife and I had prepared so I wouldn’t succumb to the temptations of the pizza gods. With the home cooked food available, the allure of pizza was null and void.
Sitting at my desk, I booted up my PC and dove into the economy forum for Argos. The exchange rate between game coin and dollars was pretty steady, hovering around a four to one, gold coin to dollar ratio, which was pretty good.
Where people got the money to spend on digital coins was beyond me. But if they were buying, I’d be selling.
Copper was the most common metal, with each bar usually selling for its equivalent weight in copper coins, plus or minus the whims of the market. Each bar had around forty coins worth of metal and took ten ore.
At the end of my mining spree I’d gathered twenty-six ore, including the quest. Enough to smelt two copper bars assuming there were no issues during smelting.
Each bar should be worth a base of four silver, so after converting to real world money I had made… $0.20. It was a little underwhelming.
Theoretically, once I reached a high enough Mining skill to cap out the gathering rate for copper, which would happen around Mining rank five, I could gather enough copper to potentially make around $3.00 an hour. Plus whatever I could sell the gems for.
I wasn’t sure if my character’s stamina could handle the physical labor, but knowing I could have my minions do some of the work made the prospect much more viable.
There was still an unknown factor of smelting time. The ore itself was worth less unprocessed, so I couldn’t skip that step, but my overall profits might be cut if smelting was too time intensive.
I updated my current spreadsheets and formulated a course of action for the night. First thing’s first, I needed more mining minions.
With my current rank of Dark Blessing I could only share skills with two of my bound minions. Once I reached rank six that would increase to three, and then an additional one every five ranks past that.
Skills being capped at the overall character level introduced some added time requirements for leveling, but hell, I might as well enjoy the game while pursuing my goals.
I forced my mind off its current track, avoiding the yawning abyss of a rabbit hole before me. I wanted to get back into the game and test my hourly calculations, not map out my character’s progression for an infinite future.
I saved the updated docs and powered off the machine. I got everything ready for bed, set my alarms and gave my wife a video call.
Instead of my April’s beautiful face on the other end of the call I got a weird view of my mother-in-law’s ceiling bouncing along accompanied by the giggling of my son and my wife’s voice calling for him to hand over the phone.
The video whipped down to show a very interesting view of the inside of a toddler’s mouth as he attempted to literally eat my face.
April recovered the phone and turned the camera on herself. I let out a snort as a bit of toddler spit on the camera distorted her face into something more fitting in a Picasso painting.
The image shifted as she took a seat and brought Diego onto her lap, a weary yet amused expression on her face as the little guy squirmed and giggled in her arms.
“Good evening, dear,” she said followed by Diego’s exuberant “Daddy!”
He was wearing a tiny little bathrobe and his hair was still wet from the bath.
“Hey buddy!” I said with a giant grin, “Did you have a fun time in the bath?”
“Uh-huh,” he said in is tiny voice, “Mama make bubbles!”
“Oooo. A bubble bath,” I said. “That sounds awesome! You know, Mommy and Daddy used to take bubble baths before you were born.”
“JT!” April exclaimed. “When he’s talking in full sentences, he’s going to repeat something and then YOU are going to get to explain it to the daycare.”
I snickered, “Yeah, yeah.”
It was almost bedtime for the little guy, so I stayed on the line while April tucked him into his crib. We took turns reading to him from one of his favorite books until he succumbed to the rigors of being a toddler and fell asleep.
After that we chatted about my current progress and the updated calculations. When she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, we said our goodbyes. I blew April a kiss, told her I love her, and ended the call.
***
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I logged back into the game, appearing in the mine where I’d logged off. The walls had the same shiny streaks as before, but the markers on my map indicating the valid mining nodes had all disappeared.
There was a skittering sound behind me, so I turned just in time to see a giant rat leaping through the air, its jaws open wide.
I barely registered the blur of its white nametag as it knocked me to the side, its teeth cutting a shallow gash along my arm.
I grabbed Yuri’s skull from my bag and summoned him as the rat dashed at me again, scoring another cut on my stomach and knocking me back again.
My health bar was below half after the rat’s assault, and my stamina wasn’t much better. Being knocked around like a soccer ball was tiring.
Luckily, the summoning delay was up, and Yuri went on the attack. He charged in, his battle axe slicing towards the giant rodent.
It twisted away, taking a glancing hit from the axe, and then struck at Yuri while he was overextended. A few chips of bone flew through the air as the giant rat bit down on my minion’s forearm.
While the rat was distracted, I sped through the casting of Dark Shield, not wanting to lose any more flesh to the vermin.
Yuri’s counterattack landed, the battle axe sinking into the rat’s side and dropping its health below thirty percent.
The rodent screeched in pain and started to hobble away, but I wasn’t about to let it get away.
I cast Drain, the dark magic stealing the creature’s life force and sealing my wound.
Faced with the new attack, the rat abandoned its attempt to flee and readied itself for another leaping attack.
But Yuri was having none of that and with a quick chop the rat was dead.
You have killed a Giant Mine Rat. You have gained 30xp!
I glared at the rat angrily. That was a “welcome back” I could have done without, but when I spotted the telltale glow of extra loot shimmering from its tail the feeling quickly faded.