Spellcraft

by Andrew Beymer

  “So in the game’s backstory the goblins had a whole commerce empire that stretched off to the big mountains you can see in the distance,” she said.

  “What big mountains?” I asked.

  “The ones you can see if you get on one of the airships?” she said.

  “Never been on an airship,” I said.

  “Well there are mountains off in the distance. There’s another Horizon guild working that outlying territory, though.”

  “Huh, so there are more assholes out there?” I asked.

  “They’re all over,” she said. “Horizon Dawn is one head of a hydra that’s all over this world.”

  “Fucking great,” I muttered.

  “Yup. They’re trying to take over the world by buying off players, and it’s working. Genius, in a twisted sort of way,” she said. “And I hate the fuckers for it.”

  “You and me and the goblins,” I said, thinking about that Writ of Nobility and wondering if reputation had something to do with Horizon not officially controlling everything in this territory. If what I’d seen from the goblins so far was anything to go by, Horizon Dawn’s reputation with them wasn’t good.

  "I imagine they don't considering the way they got slaughtered," Keia said.

  "Was it really that bad?" I asked.

  On the one hand I felt ridiculous even asking the question.

  After all, we were talking about creatures in a game. At their root the goblins were no different from the colored aliens moving across the screen in an ancient game of Space Invaders. They were the same when you got down to their nuts and bolts, even if one was far more complicated than the other.

  And yet wasn’t the definition of sapient life something whose nuts and bolts came together in something so ridiculously complicated that it became self aware?

  I thought back to the terror I’d seen on that goblin’s face when I first logged in. How it’d been scrambling for its life. How it’d jumped on me and held on as though I was the only thing standing between it and certain death.

  Was that goblin’s terror real, or was it another illusion so sufficiently advanced that it wasn’t any different from the real thing? Was that goblin’s behavior any different from the various other hyperrealistic stimuli assaulting my senses constantly? For that matter, was it really all that different from the curve of Keia's ass I’d been admiring the entire way out here even though it was a digital representation of something that likely didn’t exist in the real world?

  After all, there was still a chance she was an overweight guy named Chuck living in the her parents’ basement in Detroit, to quote an ancient movie about fictional teenagers who’d lived in a future that was now the past having adventures in a digital world that was similar to this one.

  Though in this case it would be someone living on the lowest level of their parents’ quarters in one of the many Detroit Arcologies.

  It was all confusing. I wasn't sure how to even begin thinking of the ethics of killing digital creatures that might be thinking creatures, so I decided I wasn't going to think about it too much.

  That goblin had felt real. The thing’s terror had certainly been real. And if there were assholes who were doing that to living creatures, even if that living creature was a string of ones and zeros that was thinking for itself, then I was going to stand between those ones and zeros and anyone trying to hurt them.

  After all, I figured that when you got down to it I was just an expression of biological rather than technological code. Sure my code had been perfected over billions of years rather than being designed over a couple of years of hellacious crunch time by an overworked software dev who hadn’t seen his family in months, but the end result was the same.

  So what if my code used for base pairs instead of the ones and zeroes favored by computer programmers? Was there really any difference if the end result was a thinking creature that could feel love, fear, pain, and all that stuff that made life worth living?

  "Hey there," Keia said, waving a hand in front of me. "Is all this dungeon exploring stuff boring you? Because we could always go back to the entrance and I could introduce you to the Horizon Dawn guard if you'd like."

  "Sorry," I said. "Just distracted by the game."

  "I had the same problem when I first got started,” she said. “Everything here is so realistic that it's hard to get used to."

  "You’ve got that right," I said.

  "Right," she said. "So here we are."

  I looked at my surroundings. If I was supposed to be seeing something I had no idea what it was. There was a rock wall in front of us, and as I looked at it…

  No. Come to think of it, as I looked at the wall I could see there was something there. It wasn't just my mind playing tricks on me. There was a glow. Very faint, but it was there.

  I reached out and ran a hand along the ore vein. I was pretty sure that’s what I was looking at from the way the glow ran through the wall in striations that made an almost hypnotic pattern.

  "Impressive," Keia said. "Most people can't pick that stuff out, and nobody ever bothers to actually try and go for it if they can pick it out. They know there’ll be goblins holding goblinsteel if they find them near these veins.”

  I shook my head and made a disgusted noise in the back of my throat. "That's such a fucking waste.”

  “How do you figure?” Keia asked. “I mean yeah slaughtering goblins for their goblinsteel is terrible and all, but I always thought using the ore veins to point to goblins who are likely to have the stuff was pretty clever, if brutal.”

  “They're playing the game all wrong and being assholes while they’re at it,” I said.

  “Horizon Dawn in a nutshell,” Keia muttered.

  “It really is such a waste though,” I went on. “The people seeing that faint glow have the ability to gather ore, and they thought it was a way to point them towards goblins to kill? Seriously?”

  Keia shrugged. "What did I tell you? Horizon Dawn is a mix of stupid and savvy, and you never know which one is going to come out on top at a given moment."

  "Talk about a bunch of fucking idiots!" I growled.

  “As I’ve mentioned many times before, we’re in total agreement on that point. So can you do something with this?" she asked. "Because it looks like they’ve cleared out this mine recently. That means the only way we’re getting at any of that ore is if you figure out a way to mine the stuff yourself.”

  I hit her with a sharp look. "You almost sound like you're sad there are no goblins to kill," I said.

  "I mean they are just mobs in a game," she said. “And I really want to finish this quest.”

  I held her gaze long enough that she finally looked away with a blush.

  "I know," she said with a sigh. "I don't like it either, but how else are we supposed to complete the quest?"

  "Like this," I said, pulling my pickaxe out of my inventory and slamming it against the ore vein.

  I had no idea if that would work, even if that was the way it worked in most games. You saw some ore you wanted to mine, so you swung a pickaxe against the stuff until you got the ore.

  Well, in most games up to the launch of Lotus you clicked on the ore you wanted to mine and then the pickaxe came out and an animation ran until the stuff appeared in your inventory, or not, but I figured the basic idea was more or less the same here.

  The only problem was I slammed my pickaxe against that ore vein and nothing happened other than a jarring blow running up my arms causing my teeth to chatter.

  "This is not putting the quest ore in my inventory like I was hoping for lowbie,” Keia said.

  "Just give me a minute here," I said. "It can take a couple of tries to get this stuff to work when you’ve never done it before.”

  “If you say so," she said, but she didn't sound very convinced.

  I slammed my pickaxe against the ore vein again. This time there was a spark which was promising. At least it seemed promising until nothing happened. Again. Which made me ner
vous since Keia was right there looking at me like things weren’t going to go well for me if nothing happening continued to be the status quo.

  Sure we’d had a flirtatious thing going. At least I thought we did. I didn’t think for a moment that would save me if she thought I was screwing with her though.

  "Damn it," I said.

  But then I noticed something in my heads up display. I’d gained a few skill points in Gathering:Mining. I hadn't gotten any ore, but that skill point meant this was working.

  "We're getting somewhere now," I said. “I got some skill points in mining.”

  "I certainly hope you are," Keia said. “Because skill points aren’t ore I can put in my inventory.”

  She held her hand out and a dagger appeared. She rolled it between her fingers as she hit me with a too sweet smile that promised terrible things if I didn't figure out how to mine that ore soon. As far as motivations went it was a pretty good one.

  That didn’t stop a few choice unpleasant phrases from running through my mind as I thought about the situation. Mostly I thought about how ridiculous it was that I’d focused on gathering rather than combat.

  Though I could at least comfort myself with the knowledge that even if I did have skill points in combat, it's not like they’d do me a damn bit of good against a stealth archer who was obviously higher in any combat skills that’d matter in a one-on-one fight. Sure I might be able to get in a lucky cheap shot, but I didn't think even that would do me much good aside from pissing Keia off at the start of the fight.

  I sighed and poured all my frustration into the next swing. My pickaxe slammed against the ore vein, and this time a little inventory window popped up showing a nugget of goblinsteel ore that deposited itself in my inventory.

  That’s a bingo!

  I also gained a couple points in mining with one hit. Apparently the stuff I was going for was high enough that a successful hit gave me a few points at once. It was a good thing for me the people who'd designed this game didn’t seem to be all about setting limitations for players.

  At least so far the game didn't feel like the cheap game design in a Horizon VR module where any materials that were out of my level would’ve been impossible to gather, full stop, instead of taking longer which is how it would’ve worked in the real world.

  I was basically powerleveling my gathering by going for a stroll through a zone that should’ve been way beyond me with a girl who was willing to protect me as long as I produced.

  I liked to think she enjoyed having me around for other reasons, the hot springs came to mind, but the way she kept flashing that dagger had my potential in-game doom more prominently on my mine than any flirting we might’ve done on the way to the mines.

  "Booyah!” I said. "And that's how you do it!"

  "You got it?" Keia asked, leaning forward as though she expected to see my inventory window or something. "That seriously worked?"

  "You don't have to sound like you don't believe me," I said.

  "Sorry," she said. "The whole gathering and crafting thing has never been my deal. This is all new to me."

  I plucked the ore out of my inventory, the stuff was way heavier than it looked, and tossed it. Keia grabbed it and examined the hunk of metal.

  "Damn. You really were telling the truth," she said.

  "Of course I was!" I said. "Now how many more of those things do you need to finish your quest?"

  Keia’s eyes glassed over as she no doubt checked a heads up display with quest text. "About twenty.”

  She looked at me as though she expected me to balk at that number. Instead I grinned and twirled my trusty pickaxe. That pickaxe suddenly felt way better than a nice enchanted sword, for all that I’d been getting pissy about my lack of combat abilities moments ago.

  Which got me to thinking. I wondered if it’d be possible to enchant a pickaxe. It seemed like the developers had thought of and allowed so many other things, so why not enchanted gathering tools? Or whatever the hell they called enchanting in this game. It was something to tuck away in the “ways to break the game later” mental folder to research later.

  “Twenty should be easy enough,” I said.

  "Really?" she asked, sounding seriously surprised.

  “Is that so hard to believe?” I asked.

  “What’s hard to believe is you sound like you’re actually looking forward to a boring gather quest.”

  "Spending time in a dark and creepy mine working on my mining ability?" I asked. "Why wouldn't I have fun doing that?"

  Keia grinned and shook her head. Her hair fell from side to side and it caused her ears to poke out just a little. The way she smiled really completed the whole cute elf ensemble. Like we’re talking distractingly cute.

  Part of the reason I didn't mind spending a bunch of time in a dark and creepy dungeon doing a boring gather quest, aside from the fact that I was powerleveling some insane skill boosts I wouldn’t otherwise get, was I got to spend a little more time with Keia. Not that I had any intention of telling her that and potentially ruining the mood.

  “Then let's get this show on the road!" she said.

  I grinned and followed her as she led me deeper into the mine.

  33

  Spellcraft Unlocked

  I lost track of time as I got into the zone. It was a place my mind went when I was on autopilot doing crafting and gathering stuff.

  Usually I’d pull up a separate window in my heads up display and watch something in the background, but with Keia there chatting with me it was far more interesting to talk to the pretty elf girl.

  "So then I fire the arrow, and wouldn't you know it, the thing lands right between his ass cheeks!"

  She threw her head back and laughed, and I laughed right along with her. Sure it was a painful story of one man’s unfortunate and very painful encounter with an arrow, but it’d happened to Torian, so my amusement outweighed the cringe factor.

  “Did you mean to hit him there?” I asked.

  She kept giggling. "That's the thing. I wasn't aiming for his ass, but you bet your ass once I hit there I took credit for it like I’d been intending to hit that brown bullseye!”

  “I’d do the same thing!" I said. "That sounds like it’d be painful though."

  Keia leaned in closer. She glanced from side to side as though she was making sure there was no one around to overhear her even though we were in the middle of a mine where we were the only two living creatures. Even so, she used a stage whisper.

  "I'm not one hundred percent sure on this, but Lotus must’ve put out a patch that caused the diminishing returns on pain, and that sensory slider that lets someone more or less turn pain off that you discovered, after that incident. They didn’t publicize that second one for some reason though. Either way, I’m pretty sure it was the reports Lotus got after Torian took an arrow to the you-know-what that caused them to put that stuff in place."

  I shook my head and wiped a tear from my eye as I tapped another ore vein. Through trial and error I’d discovered I didn't need to slam my pickaxe against the walls. Tapping a vein was enough to put the goblinsteel ore in my inventory. It might take a couple of tries considering I wasn’t a high enough skill level to be mining here, but it worked.

  We had time in abundance since Horizon Dawn had been obliging enough to clear out the dungeon for us.

  If the game didn’t think I had the skill to get a particular ore vein it was simply a matter of tapping it over and over again until whatever underlying math made the game world go ‘round finally decided it was going to give up the goods even though my skill wasn’t high enough.

  I’d also been getting some other interesting things while I was mining. Like gems. I had no idea what they were used for, but I suspected there was some sort of crafting use for them that went above and beyond looking pretty.

  Then again in a game like this I wouldn't put it past the designers to simply put gems in for no other purpose than they looked pretty and it was something else to se
ll.

  I hadn't told Keia about those. Sure we were having a great time, but there was still a possibility she might try to double cross me. Especially if she thought she could get money by stealing the gems I’d been mining fair and square.

  If what she’d said about Lotus gold being exchangeable for real world money was true then there was certainly incentive for someone to try and knock someone else over for potentially valuable items in the game.

  I might share some of the goodies with her once we got back to town and I could rest assured she wasn't going to kill my ass and take all of them, but for now I was playing it safe. Better to tell her about the extra goodies when we were surrounded by goblin guards who took a dim view of players attacking other players within city limits.

  I figured a lack of trust was a good policy while playing a game where world PVP seemed to not only be enabled, but a tool more powerful players used to enforce their will on lowbies and people who sucked at combat.

  I looked around our current room. We’d done a couple of circuits of the place, I was able to find more and more veins as I got higher and higher in my mining skill, but it looked like we’d finally tapped this room out. At least there was no more glow, not to mention no more striated lines in the wall indicating a vein that didn’t glow because my skill was too low.

  "Probably time to move on," I said.

  "Sure thing," Keia said. "I think the forge is beyond this room."

  "You've been here before?" I asked.

  "These ring mines all have the same basic layout," she said. "Maybe I haven't been to this one specifically, but they're all more or less the same in terms of what rooms go where."

  I wondered what she'd done in these dungeons with Horizon Dawn. She seemed to have a pretty good idea of what’d been done to the goblins in here, like maybe she’d been here for some of it, but I wasn’t going to dig too deep there. Not when there was still the risk she might give me a firsthand demonstration of what happened to those poor goblin bastards if I annoyed her.

  We stepped into the next room and sure enough there were crafting implements all around the edge, with a forge right in the middle. The place was amazing. I hadn’t seen actual crafting implements yet, and I felt like a kid in a playground.