Master of None

by Shane Walker

  Oh, shit! This was basically the boss fight! We gotta loot this place!

  “Nik, it’s loot time! Help me look around for anything valuable!” I shouted without even looking around for him.

  “Already on it. I’m taking a look around here and in the connected rooms.” he replied from across the room.

  First stop for the Alltrades Loot Train was Gonk’s ugly ass. The hammer was, unfortunately, not magical. On second thought, if it were magical I’d have been dead. Nothing else really of note was on him except for the money he had on him.

  You find 900 gold!

  The money sack had a note in it showing the wages and totals for the kobolds we slaughtered making our way through the mines. It showed a list of roles the kobolds had and had two numbers beside each. The first was a large number that lined up with how many we’d killed. The second was a smaller number. After doing the math, multiplying the numbers and adding it all up came out to just a little less than what we’d found in the bag.

  I guess this was a week’s worth of wages and a little to spare for him or something else.

  With nothing else on his body worth anything, I moved on to the dragon. Honestly, I had to force myself to keep calling it “the dragon” instead of using its name. I didn’t think I could skin something if I was thinking about its name.

  The hide of a real dragon was, it turns out, much more difficult to cut through than that of the komodo knock-off variety. With the recent increase in skill levels though, it was like my hands had a muscle memory understanding of how to be gentle with it to prevent damaging the hide while also being firm enough to cut through the hide cleanly.

  When all was said and done, I ended up with significantly more materials than I did from a single komodo. It made sense to get more from the bigger monster.

  I need to add Leatherworking to my list of skills to learn when we get done here to see if I can make some nice stuff out of this.

  You receive Black Dragon Hide x 20!

  You receive Black Dragon Talon x 12!

  You receive Black Dragon Tooth (Mature) x 4!

  You receive Black Dragon Tooth (Young) x 6!

  You receive Black Dragon Acid Sac x 1!

  Your Skinning has increased to 9!

  I spent almost a full minute in my dreams of wearing jet black leather armor made of dragon hide when Nik interrupted my thoughts. Hopefully he didn’t realize I was having a leather-related fantasy. There was literally no good way to try explaining it.

  “Jack, you might want to look at this.” Nik called out.

  Nik’s response sounded incredulous. I turned around to look and he was in the entrance to a side room I didn’t notice when we came in. The shit eating grin he was wearing looked like it was going to split his face in half.

  “There’s a cache of weapons in here, Jack! It looks like he’s just been collecting all of the gnomish weapons from nearby. There’s a decent pile in here. I guess this is his bedroom? There’s a chest here, but it’s locked.” he rattled off as I walked up.

  “Locked chest? Weird. Gonk didn’t have the key. We’ll count up the weapons in this pile and move on to the chest. I’m going to save it for last.”

  You receive Gnomish Longsword x 10!

  You receive Gnomish Shortsword x 13!

  You receive Gnomish Spears x 8!

  That was a lot of weapons, but none were magical. This is getting really frustrating! Daddy wants his magic weapons!

  With the boring stuff out of the way, it was time to open the big present under the tree! I let a frustrated groan slip out as I get to the chest and see it’s probably the fanciest lock I’ve seen so far. Oh well, I’ve got to try, right?

  Lockpick attempt failed!

  Your Lockpicking has increased to 3!

  Fuck.

  Lockpick attempt failed!

  Your Lockpicking has increased to 4!

  Double fuck. Third time’s the charm?

  Lockpick attempt succeeded!

  Your Lockpicking has increased to 5!

  “Oh boy. Nik, you might want to see this!” I said with a gold glint in my eye.

  You receive 5400 Gold!

  You receive Silver Bars x 20!

  You receive Iron Bars x20!

  You receive Dagger (Unidentified) x2!

  Finally some magic weapons! I just hoped Nik was able to figure these out. If they were good, it would definitely solidify my plans to pick up the Dagger skill.

  “Nik, can you identify these Daggers when we get done in here?” I asked.

  “Sure thing, Jack. What else did you want to do, though?” he said.

  “First we gotta load all this loot up in a cart. Second, I need to explore the controls for this place as the new owner. Third, we’re going to do a little mining of our own.” I explained.

  It took another hour to get everything we’d found carried back up to the second floor and loaded into a cart. When that was done, Nik said he needed to take a break from the game for a few minutes and that he’d identify the daggers when he got back. That gave me a perfect opportunity to look over the controls for the mine.

  Welcome to the Resource Management screen! This screen allows for the management of a Major Resource, such as a Town, Mine, Harbor, etc. Major Resources generate Management Points based on the Resource’s production and your Management Skill. Increasing production will increase your skill, which will increase your Management Points, allowing you to further increase production.

  New Skill!

  Management

  Level 1

  Allows player to control resources and gain management points for those resources. Points gained are multiplied by skill level.

  Resource Name: Gnometheran Mines

  Resource Type: Mine-Iron/????

  Rates:

  Iron: 10 Ore/Miner

  ????: ???? (Mining Skill required to find Unknown Ore)

  Maximum Miners:

  Iron: 50

  ????: 5

  Maximum Guards:

  Interior: 11

  Exterior: 18

  Management Points/Week: None (No Productivity)

  Management Points Total: 400

  Upgrades Available:

  Manager Connection-100 Points ea.

  This upgrade allows you to immediately contact any other Resource Manager with whom you have an official agreement regardless of current physical locations.

  Smelter-200 Points

  Allows for smelting chunks of ore found in the mine in order to remove impurities and process them into ingots. These ingots sell faster and for more gold than raw chunks of ore.

  Additional Rails-500 Points ea.

  Adding more rails for carts increases production based on number of rails already owned. (For example, adding a second rail would increase production by 100%. Increasing that by 100% would require adding two more rails)

  Expand Level-2500 x Level Expanded

  Increases size of selected level by 50-100%. Cost based on depth. (2500 to expand first level, 5000 to expand second level, etc.) Each level can be expanded once. Results Vary

  Add Level-5000 x Current Levels

  Adds another level below current lowest level. Results Vary.

  Holy shit this is a lot to take in all at once.

  I could see that I would definitely have to work out some deals with the mayor when we got back. For the time being, I needed to find whatever other ore was in the mine. I had an idea what it would be based on what we’d seen so far. Those silver bars in the chest had to come from somewhere.

  Wait. I haven’t seen a smelter down here. How did they turn this ore into bars? Oh well. Probably not worth thinking about.

  After I closed out of the menu that I’ve been staring at for what was apparently much longer than I thought, I realized Nik was standing there waiting with another one of those shit eating grins.

  “I think you’re going to like these, Jack.” he said as he held out the daggers far more reverently than I’d expected. Aft
er I took them from him, I saw a new window pop-up I hadn’t seen for equipment yet.

  Weapon Set Found!

  Boldsbane & Gnomesgain

  These matched daggers are actually Gnomish shortswords. However, the diminutive size of the Gnomes means humans wield their weapons as effectively 1 category smaller.. Each weapon has its own bonuses, and when both are possessed by the same person these bonuses are doubled.

  Boldsbane

  Type: Dagger

  Base Damage: 4

  Attribute Bonuses: +5 Agility/+5 Endurance

  Damage Modifier: +30% Agility

  Gnomesgain

  Type: Dagger

  Base Damage: 4

  Attribute Bonuses: +5 Intellect/+5 Vitality

  Damage Modifier: +30% Agility

  Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I took a look at the daggers, which were just tiny short swords apparently, and appreciated the designs. Boldsbane was a wicked looking blade with a slight curve. It was clearly for nothing but murder. From what little I knew about knives from the real world, the design lent itself less to stabs and more to slashes. Gnomesgain on the other hand was straight and slightly wider. It was the “stabby” one of the two and the wide flat side seemed like it would be good for blocks and parries. Of course, I knew slightly more about knife fighting than I did about flying spaceships. And considering spaceships didn’t exist, my knife knowledge could be considered less than impressive.

  Once the Set Bonus was taken into account, I was getting a +10 in four out of my six attributes! Forty extra points was like an extra eight levels worth of bonus points! I sheathed them on my hips ready to draw in a reverse grip as soon as they were needed. Now that the excitement was out of the way, I was ready to start mining.

  Nik said he’d like to go find everything he needed for his Artificer Quest while I dealt with my new menus and it seemed like the best use of time, so I agreed. He was a bit more confident and had a few additional levels compared to when he got the quest, so if there were some low level monsters that popped up outside he should still be OK. Worst case scenario, he could send me a message if he was out of range for party comms. Once he was off, I started trying to figure out where the hell this silver was.

  After considering all the possibilities, the third floor seemed to be the most likely culprit. It was smaller than the rest and the management page said only five miners could extract the “unknown ore,” which I took to mean the vein was small or not much was exposed. I decided that, since I didn’t actually know what I was doing, I could take a torch and walk along the walls until I saw the shimmer of silver catch the light.

  Somehow, that actually worked! I mean, of course it did! I am a bit of a genius.

  Your Perception has increased to 6!

  Once I found it, I found somewhere nearby to place my torch and got to work with one of the many pickaxes we now had. The first few swings either skipped along the surface of the stone wall or went straight in and just stopped. There were a few that slid down the rock face and hit me directly in the leg. I’d read somewhere that was common when someone was learning how to mine this way. I ended up spending close to an hour working just on aiming and angling my swings. After that I took another hour just getting the hang of where to actually aim. It then takes somewhere around an additional two hours to finally get a big enough chunk of silver for the game to recognize it as a success.

  New Skill!

  Mining

  Level 1

  Reduces the number of required swings for extracting an ore by an amount equal to the level of the skill. Also increases your ability to detect undiscovered mineral veins

  You receive Silver Ore x1!

  Management Page Updated!

  You have discovered a vein of Silver Ore in your mine!

  Your Management has increased to 2!

  I checked the Management page and, sure enough, the question marks were gone. Apparently, even though I could only get five miners working this vein, they could each get ten pieces of ore a day. That should be a decent chunk of money regardless, and it moved expanding this floor to my number one priority.

  Nik messaged me to let me know that the area outside still appeared to be clear and that he was going to spend a couple of hours outside gathering. Apparently he picked up Herbalism when he found the plant he needed and was inspired by yours truly to start getting some skill levels. I wasn’t sure how collecting plants all the time would help someone who specialized in making machines, but who was I to judge?

  Actually, skill grinding doesn’t seem like a bad idea!

  Two hours later, Nik found me in a heap on the third floor with my armor and shirt removed in an attempt to cool off. It wasn’t helping of course, but it didn’t hurt to try. I was really hating the realism of the game and the sensations you could experience right at that moment. I had some major chaffing going on that I did not appreciate.

  In the time Nik was outside picking flowers, I’d managed to pick up nine more chunks of silver ore, each of which increased my Mining skill by one point. I also managed to get four more points in Perception from all the times I’d closed my eyes while sprawled out waiting for SP to recharge, only to lose track of where I was mining. Thank goodness I only managed this place and wouldn’t have to work here.

  Oh no. I thought to myself. Now I’m the asshole district manager that just shows up every now and then to tell you you’re doing your job wrong but doesn’t actually do the work himself. I resolved then to never be the asshole boss even if my employees were probably going to be NPCs.

  As for my prodigious production rates, Alfred was kind enough to explain that NPC miners would generally have lower SP than I did and would work at a slower, steadier rate. That meant the NPCs would take eight hours to do what I pulled off in about three and some change.

  At first, I tried to think of how much ore I could get out of here if I was working the mine too. Then I thought about all my other plans for when I got to the capital.

  Sorry, dad. I can’t stay in the mine. The life of male modeling and capitalism calls to me!

  Nik and I decided that there was nothing else of interest down here, so it was time to head back to the surface. We were both unusually quiet as we pushed the cart of loot back up the way we came in and then carried it from the entrance to the camp. The entire process took about ninety minutes and we were both exhausted from the back and forth. We agreed on when to meet up and both logged out. Once again I crashed for the night like I’d done the mental equivalent of a triathalon.

  The next day, Nik and I had been online going over our loot pile one last time when the stable master showed up with his cart. There was an undeniable look of confusion and worry on his face when he realized our haul might not fit.

  Working together, the three of us managed to get everything on within about an hour or so. The ride back was incredibly peaceful, albeit short. Someone saw us coming and ran and told the whole damn town we were coming, so our loot filled cart was surrounded by onlookers who couldn’t believe we came back with this much stuff. Even El managed to sneak a peak at us, throwing me a knowing smirk and a nod when our eyes met, as if to tell me that she expected nothing less after our time training together.

  The group pressing in towards our haul started making me nervous once I realized anyone in the throng could slip away with some of our stuff. I called the closest guards over and asked if they’d stay with the cart and keep our stuff safe.

  “Oh, and can one of you go get the mayor? He and I have business to discuss.”

  14-Demand

  Quest Completed!

  Rogue 3

  You completed all the tasks given to you as a part of this quest! Nik can obtain his Artificer Job and you’ve acquired control of the mine!

  “Jack, my boy! It looks like you were even more successful than I could have ever imagined!” Poppil greeted me at the front door of his home as happy as he could be. “Since I’m the closest Major Resource owner and the mine was ta
ken by someone I knew, I received a notification as soon as you took it.” As soon as he and I both crossed the threshold of his home he turned and closed the door behind him.

  Wordlessly, Poppil went over to the wall, pressed a button, then stood back as a wet bar emerged from the now opened section of wall. He grabbed a bottle and motions for me to sit at the table. He took his seat, poured two glasses of what turned out to be a delicious gnome bourbon, and handed me one.

  Holy shit, why am I able to even taste this? Full Immersion gets so weird sometimes.

  A much different smile spread across his face after that. This one was almost predatory, but the kindness that still twinkled in his eyes told me that he was more concerned with getting what was best for his people than just fucking me over. “I suppose you’re wanting to talk business.” he said with a slight hint of amusement in his voice.

  “Yes, actually, I am. In addition to arrangements for staffing the mine, I also have a massive pile of loot to sell. Any chance you can put in a good word with the shops here in town so I can get some fair prices?” I asked.