Master of None

by Shane Walker

  “Since I was the first player to win the tournament, the game awarded me with the Job that gave me the bonuses of Duelist and then some. Once I’d leveled it up a lil bit, I gained a Technique that allows me a percentage chance to kill anything with a lower Agility with my first strike. The leader for this group had a higher Agility than I expected, so it drug the fight out something awful compared to my normal duels.”

  “Wait, a Technique? You mean a Skill?” I asked.

  “Not quite. A technique is more like a special move or special attack you can use in combat. It works kinda like a spell except it’s physical and costs stamina. And some of them have real long cooldowns.” she explained.

  “Wow, that sounds really badass!” I exclaimed when I heard her response. I doubted I’d learn any of those any time soon since my skill levels were too precious right now, but it was good to know it was out there.

  At this point, she’s traded her smile for an outright devilish grin as she takes in the shock and amazement on my face. She knew she just reeled me in after I was the one trying to hire her.

  “As for working for you, make it 1500 a week and I’m in.”

  “Destreza, welcome to the team!”

  17-Big Box Store

  As it turned out, Destreza was an entirely effective deterrent simply by being present. She was kind enough to explain that the bandit groups wouldn’t even try to attack a convoy she was with now after all the groups she’d killed down to the man.

  That made for a very quiet trip the remainder of the journey to the nearby human village. Donnybrook was what the gnomes transporting him had called it. I decided to look over my sheet and noticed I had gained 1000 XP towards the next level from the two I got kills on. That was a lot of XP to me.

  Hey Alfred, why did I get so much just from two kills?

  “Humanoids always give significant experience, sir. It is typically a tenth of the experience needed to go from the humanoids’ previous level to their current.

  “If they are half your level or less, you’ll only get half, but if they are twice your level or more, you will get double. It is theoretically possible to gain a very large number of levels if you’re able to kill a humanoid enemy that is significantly higher level.”

  Interesting but I doubt I’ll be trying to pull that off. The risk-reward on that one doesn’t appeal to me…

  It was pretty fascinating to see that crossing the border from Gnomish territory into Human territory was very distinct. It was as if a line was drawn between the two lands. Slight changes in the shade and color palette signified our transition into human lands. It was a very beautiful, if unnatural, thing to see.

  “Hey, Jack, we’re almost to Donnybrook. You might want to wake your gnome friend up, ya?” Destraza says and points towards Nik’s curled up form. Since he wasn’t really in charge of anything or required to protect the caravan, he didn’t need to stick around. He logged out to take care of some IRL stuff at home he said, so I messaged him to let him know. Since we were in a game-recognized caravan, logging out left his character in the wagon.

  A few minutes later, Nik stirred and looked around. “We’re close? How far?” he asked since no civilization was visible. “We’ll hit their farms in about five minutes.” came the reply from Destreza. “Another ten to fifteen of riding till we hit the gate after that.”

  Sure enough, her times were dead on. Five minutes after she said that, we started seeing the worked fields of the Donnybrook farmlands. It was a beautiful scene of gently rolling open terrain full of lush crops just like you’d expect to see in an idyllic medieval fantasy setting.

  Honestly, it looked like it was all wheat.

  It was almost exactly fifteen minutes later when we showed up at the gates of Donnybrook. The guards gave off a real “we’re not really planning on keeping you out, but we have to go through the motions anyway” vibe when they questioned us about our intent, destination, cargo, blah, blah, blah. It felt cheap in a game so detailed and vibrant until it hit me that people in these sorts of jobs are like this in the real world. Everyone is trying to justify their paycheck.

  I tried to get into the small town feeling once we were through the gate and found a place to park the wagons, but there wasn’t enough there. Donnybrook was just...boring.

  I asked every fucking person I saw who had a trade Skill to train with them. They were all around my level or lower in the skill. No one in this town had anything beyond basic understanding of the skills I was interested in. Instead, I settled for using the smelting equipment to refine some more of my ore I’d intentionally left unrefined and then practicing some Weaponsmithing on making more shortswords.

  All the practice got both skills up to ten, which was a small blessing, I guess. The real gain in all of this was getting a contact in the city for someone I could go after immediately to start moving the iron. A guy by the name of Rowan apparently ran a shop that could deal in everything from the unique and unusual to mass volume sales like this.

  An uneventful stay, and an uneventful second leg of the trip later, we finally found ourselves outside Corbinhold, the massive capital of the Human Realms. If you sat and made a list of all the cliches about penultimate human cities in fantasy settings, this bad boy hit all your favorite high notes. With white stone walls polished smooth and impossibly high, a layout spread along a geographical feature called a hill but resembling a mountain, massive gates protecting a single entrance and protected by guards in shining armor catching sunlight just as well as the walls of the city, Corbinhold was the greatest structure in all of The Realms.

  At the pinnacle of it all was the Castle Andell, the seat of power in the Human Realms. It was clearly visible on approach, but as we closed in on the gates it disappeared behind the colossal walls of the city proper.

  “Ho, travelers! Welcome to Corbinhold! Safest and most beautiful city in all The Realms. What brings you here this fine eve?” one of the guards greeted us as we approached.

  He seems friendly and genuine, so I decide to return the kindness. There would be no benefit to lying to him about anything. Still, no reason to tell him everything.

  “We’re coming in from the Gnomish Realms looking to make a new home and possibly create some trade agreements for our goods.” I replied.

  The guard raised a single eyebrow at that. Even Destreza seemed to be suddenly interested in the conversation.

  “Oh? And what are you looking to sell with these agreements?” he asked, more curious than suspicious.

  “Well, I’m looking to make a business of crafting in the city-whatever anyone needs-as well as setting up a contract to sell iron.”

  Both guards jaws dropped at the i-word. Apparently the bad guy spiel I overheard regarding the humans being desperate was dead-on.

  “If you’ve really got iron to sell, sir, you’re about to become very popular! Unfortunately, unless you are a registered merchant you cannot sell directly to the kingdom or direct through a storefront or stall and that process can take months! Did you already have a contact to set up agreements with? I’m afraid your only option for now is to sell to a merchant who’s already registered” he explained, clearly hoping to help speed along my contract with the kingdom.

  “I was told to see a guy named Rowan. He’s supposed to be a merchant in the city.” I said, wishing I’d gotten more information than a potentially common-in-a-fantasy-setting first name.

  The guards started shifting like the name made them slightly uncomfortable. “Oh, crazy Rowan? Yeah, he’s a one of a kind, that one. We can get you to him.”

  The shop the guards directed us to was, well, massive! I expected at most a two-story with maybe 2,000 square feet. This was triple that, easily. Why would he need such a big building?

  “OK, guys,” I said turning to Nik and Destreza, “I’m going to work on setting up the sales contracts with this guy if he pans out, but we need to start looking for somewhere to set up our base of operations. Nik, you’ll have the best idea of o
ur needs, so find something that can accommodate all of our skills, ok? Just don’t finalize anything without me.”

  “Sure, Jack. That shouldn’t be a problem. My main concern is reinforcing it against my explosives. I’d hate to get kicked out of the city for leveling a n-neighborhood.”

  “Your stuff could do that?” Destreza interjected with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, possibly. If I got a ratio wrong. Or if I put in too m-much m-mana too fast.” he stammered out.

  Oh no, his stutter comes back around women? Or maybe it’s just strangers. This will be rough.

  After sending off my friends with their instructions (and a PM to Nik encouraging him to not be too nervous around Destreza) I stepped into the shop. The man sitting behind the counter made me freeze mid-step and mid-word. I’d been trying to greet him until my brain tried processing him and just couldn’t wrap around him.

  He looked to be in his late forties, but obviously still very fit. And not fit for his age, just fit in general. His body language said he wasn’t a threat, but could easily be one if needed. His eyes were kind and considerate, but also cold and calculating. The contradictions were too much for me to reconcile.

  “Hello, traveler! Welcome to-” he stopped mid introduction as his eyes locked onto mine. I wanted to look away, but couldn’t. It felt like he was staring at my soul and I was powerless to stop him!

  “Ah, interesting.” he continued. “The name is Rowan Vonn, and it’s a pleasure to meet ya, lad. Honestly, I never thought I would ever again in this life meet another Master of None. Now, what can I do for ya, Jack?”

  18-Capital Gains

  “How the fuck do you know all of that?” I said, slowly reaching for my daggers. Some part of my brain knew that I wasn’t being physically threatened, but this guy knowing more than he was supposed to immediately knocked my lizard brain into gear screaming Defend yourself.

  “How the absolute fuck do you know my name and traits?” I said, hoping he would say something that would let me be rational again and stop preparing to murder a shopkeeper out of sheer paranoia. I honestly had no idea why I was reacting like this.

  “Oh shit, lad. Sorry ‘bout that. I let my Intimidate skill kick in. She can be a real bitch, too. Doesn’t just make people afraid of ya, it causes a fight, flight, or freeze response and the reaction is random if I’m not controlling it.

  “As for how I knew all of that about ya? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for not putting it together considering your adverse reaction to Intimidate. You’ve got Perception up enough to see names and classes, so you should’ve known that’s how I did it, lad. I could see your traits because unlike your modest ten points, mine is maxed at 100! On top of that, there can be some very uncomfortable side effects when you’re under the effect of a high level Intimidate and Perception simultaneously.”

  My jaw nearly dropped at that. Some random merchant has a max level skill? “How the hell did you get it so high? And-” I paused, suddenly remembering his phrasing. “Did you say another Master of None? You know another person with the Trait? I didn’t think anyone would be interested in this considering the lost magic potential.”

  “I wouldn’t say I know another. I am the other. And who the hell needs magic when you can open up a world of potential?” he says, holding his arms out wide in a grand gesture. “You can feel it, I just know it. You’ve got that burning desire to learn!” he continued. And the worst part was that he was right. It was the worst part because I hate feeling like someone has read me.

  “Anyway, what’s so exciting about seeing another Master of None?” I ask. He was obviously pushing this in a direction and I want to know which one.

  “Finally! You get to the point. I want a protege. I want to be a mentor. I’ve learned a lot over the years and I want to make sure it doesn’t go to waste.”

  “What can you teach me, exactly?” I’m not really sure if he’s offering me skills or what here, but learning more from an NPC with a wide variety of skills has a certain appeal to it. That’s assuming the price is right.

  “Everything about the Job system.” he replies. “It’s our bread and butter and we can do all manner of fun stuff with it.

  “Outside of a couple of niche ones that aren’t incredibly useful, most Jobs are based around getting certain skills to a certain level. What restricts people to one or maybe two Jobs is how hard it is to get the requisite skills high enough. Following?” he stopped to make sure I understood so far.

  “Yeah, I think so. With our higher cap on skills, we can obtain more Jobs than normal. What good does that do, though? I mean why go through all the trouble for all those Jobs?”

  “That’s easy, lad.” I really hated being called lad already. “If you use them right, they magnify the power of the related skills. A Job can turn you from a random nobody with some modest ability to hide in a dark room into a proper Assassin or Thief. The big boon for the two of us is that we may never be the best at anything, but we can be real damn good at a lot of things. That gives us a versatility like no one else.

  “We can talk about all this later, though. I s’pose you’re wanting to take care of some sort of business, otherwise you wouldn’t have come in here in the first place.”

  It takes me a second to shift mental gears before I can remember what I actually came in for. “Yes, I need to sell some iron. And by some I mean a lot. And by a lot I mean a metric fuckton. Do you even have the metric system in this world?” I was nervously rambling.

  He lets out a long whistle. “Iron, eh? How exactly do you have a lot of iron?” he asks. “Oh, sorry. I mean how exactly do you have a metric fuckton?”

  Oh right, there’s a shortage. Wait, that also means he can’t see my Achievements with his Perception. Otherwise he’d know about the mine. I realized.

  Going against my better judgment, I decide to go with honesty to garner some good will with someone who could become a useful source of money and information. “I recently took ownership of a mine outside the Human Realm. Unfortunately, the local village doesn’t need all of the ore it’s producing, so I have a lot to move now. I was told I can’t sell it to locals or the crown without a merchant license and someone pointed me to you since a license will take a long time and the kingdom needs the iron quickly.” I blurted out

  “Aye, that’s all true. Goddamn bureaucracy will be the death of us. How much ore are we talking?”

  “6,000 Iron ingots today and 10,000 ingots a week after this.” I say, deciding to keep a chunk of future shipments to myself for crafting. “Also, note I didn’t say ore. What I’m selling is already smelted and purified. It’s ingots ready to be used..” I correct him with no small amount of pride.

  He lets out another long whistle. “And how much are ya expecting per ingot?” I should be able to Haggle this well, so I shoot for it. “I’d like four gold per ingot.” That got a laugh out of him, unfortunately.

  “Sorry, lad, but you’d normally be lucky to get one a piece selling at that volume!” He must register the shock on my face and continues. “Oh, you was expecting Haggle to get you a deal? Not against my Skills it won’t. Tell ya what, though. Since I’m likely to fleece the crown on this one due to the shortage, I’ll give you two. That’s the base price for ingots. When they’re sold in a reasonable volume. I should be selling it to the crown for almost triple that price anyway.

  “Speaking of, if we’re doing this we’re doing it under contract. I don’t want you pulling this deal out from under me and fucking me six ways from Sunday. This is my retirement money, lad!” he said as he started laughing maniacally while digging under the counter.

  “AH! Here we go.” he said a few moments later as he produced a quill and parchment. He placed the parchment on the counter and began writing furiously without stopping for several minutes.

  “Contract Paper.” he said finally as he held up the now full sheet of paper. “We sign and it’s legally and magically binding. Take a minute to look over it and tell
me what you think.”

  Thankfully, the paper’s magical properties made it easy to modify various sections I didn’t care for. Namely, he wanted a guarantee to purchase any additional ore found as the mine was expanded. Instead, I gave him a guarantee of 50% of additional Iron-only, with Gnomes recognized as having first right of refusal for Silver. Beyond that I was allowed to keep whatever I needed for crafting and training.

  Eventually, we managed to work out all these kinks and both happily signed. The one concession he asked for was that he only pay me half of what he owed me upfront, with the rest coming as soon as he could sell the first batch to the crown. He promised this wouldn’t be more than a week or so. After that, he’d be able to pay me as the Iron came into town.

  “Now that that’s out of the way, we can talk training!” he said, once more shifting gears on me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s intentionally throwing me off balance.