That seemed far more likely considering the sheer number of people playing this game.
"So you're like, seeing a menu to add stats to my sword or something?" Keia asked.
"I have no idea what I can do yet,” I said. "I need to see your sword to see if it even has the slots I need to add a Spell Infusion.”
“You mean an enchantment?”
“The game’s calling it a Spell Infusion,” I said. “I guess they wanted to have their own impressive name for the same old same old.”
“Sounds like it,” Keia said. Her eyes went glassy as she read something in her heads up display. “I’m not seeing anything about Spell Infusions or slots on my sword.”
“Yeah, that’s why I need to take a look at it,” I said. “I’m the one who has the ability, so it might not show up for you. Same as the Spellcrafting ability didn’t show up when you touched the table.”
"Well far be it for me to stop you from figuring this out," she said. “This could be fucking amazing.”
She grinned, and for the first time since we’d started our little sometimes flirtatious and sometimes snarky back and forth the shield of sarcasm and snark she wore so close seemed to drop as she lit up.
I couldn’t help but smile right back at her. It was nice seeing the real her, even if it was only for a moment.
"You and me both," I said. "You and me both."
She pulled out her sword and held it up. It looked like a pretty nice sword, but nothing fancy like some of the Horizon Syndicate gear. There were no stats, even if it was a nice bit of work.
Though I couldn’t look too far down my nose at the thing. It was a hell of a lot better than the starter sword I still carried. A starter sword I still hadn’t even used in combat. Though a quick glance at the thing sitting in my inventory didn’t show any Spellcraft slots.
Either starter gear wasn’t meant for Spellcrafting, or I hadn’t unlocked something I needed to do spell infusions. I held out my hand for Keia’s sword. It was nice enough that it should have slots.
Only Keia stopped just before my fingers brushed the hilt. Her eyes narrowed.
“What?” I asked.
"How do I know this isn't some plot to get my sword from me so you can kill me while I’m defenseless?” she asked.
"Seriously?" I asked. "You know I don't have crap for combat abilities."
“Do I know that?” she asked. "All I know is you showed up in my forest acting like a complete and total noob, but what if that’s an act? What if you’re one of Torian’s agents in noob clothing sent out here to lull me into a false sense of security so you can kill me when I let my guard down?”
I shrugged. “You're going to have to trust me at some point. The same as I trusted you not to kill me when we got out here.”
"Trust is hard won in this game,” she said.
I grinned. “Maybe so, but you gotta start somewhere. Or do you want to spend all your game time slinking around in the woods picking off Horizon Dawn people here and there until they finally get tired of it and hunt your cute ass down?”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked into that dark future, but it must’ve worked because she handed over her sword. She also hit me with a half smile that told me my remark about the cuteness of her ass hadn’t gone unnoticed.
I took the sword hilt first, but she held onto it for a moment. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
"Don't make me regret this," she said. “It’s kinda hard for me to trust anyone considering what Horizon Dawn put me through, and I’d hate for you to give me a reason to never trust again.”
"I wouldn't dream of it," I said, suddenly not wanting to know what might happen if I did have it in my mind to double cross her.
I got a hint of what might happen when I took her sword. Immediately another one appeared and she put the tip down on the ground and leaned against it as though it was the most casual pose in the world.
Of course as with all things she did there was the underlying promise of violence waiting to be unleashed. I got the feeling that violence would only be unleashed if I did something bad to her sword, and I suddenly hoped I didn’t screw this up.
"That's my favorite sword," she said. "So you'd better make this good."
“But it looks exactly the same as the one you have there,” I said.
“This is my favorite sword too,” she said with a shrug. “I love all my swords like they’re my children. Now get to it!”
I looked down at the sword and ran my hands over it. The tooltip said something about slots, which was a pretty typical crafting arrangement for adding stats to an item. Find the slot. Add an enchantment, or in this case a Spell Infusion.
Unless, of course, this sword didn't have any of those critical slots that were needed to infuse a spell.
Which might almost be a relief, because then I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally blowing up her sword and maybe killing myself in the process. Or accidentally blowing her sword up and surviving only to get killed after the fact when she ganked my ass for blowing up her sword.
I fully intended to follow the tooltip’s advice against blowing shit up, thank you very much.
A new window popped up as I felt along the sword, and I didn’t know if I should be relieved or excited. More the latter than the former.
The window showed me a diagram of the sword, and there were two slots where I could drop Spell Infused gems in. I grinned even as I felt my stomach twist, because I now had the opportunity to screw this up.
I couldn’t wait!
"I think I've got something," I said.
I took one of the gems I’d grabbed off the Spellcrafting table. It was nice and orange which reminded me of flames, and that seemed appropriate for a fire infusion.
I wasn't quite sure why I chose one of those table gems. Maybe I was feeling a little contrarian after Keia told me they were useless. I wanted to show her they could be used if someone with the proper skills came along.
I selected the Lesser Fire infusion. At least it wasn’t difficult to decide what spell infusion I was going to use considering I only had the one spell to infuse at the moment.
As soon as I started the infusion a new bar popped up at one hundred percent, but it rapidly went down. It was the familiar blue of a mana bar, even though I hadn't shown any interest in spellcasting up to this point.
It would appear that infusing a spell into a gem used up mana rather than reagents. That was interesting. The gem started to glow in my hand, and Keia gasped.
I stared at the thing for a moment. Then a tooltip popped up telling me the spell infusion was successful.
“Hold onto your butts,” I muttered as I dropped the infused gem into one of the slots on Keia’s sword.
Glowing runes appeared running up and down the sword, but they weren't quite the same color as the runes on the Horizon sword. They were reminiscent of flames and slightly orange rather than the Horizon red, and the glow faded until they seemed to be a part of the metal. Not etched on. Just part of the metal.
I grinned. “Kris is gonna have kittens when she sees how close this is to power-wrought weapons.”
“To what?” Keia asked.
“It’s something from some old books my friend loves,” I muttered.
I held the sword up and it glowed with a faint orange hue.
"Damn,” I said.
"Forget damn,” Keia breathed. "That's worth a holy shit!”
"Okay then," I said. “Holy shit!”
“Can I have a look?” she asked, almost hesitant now where she’d been aggressive and potentially dangerous before.
“The sword is yours,” I said with a shrug.
I held it out and she took it reverently by the hilt. Her mouth hung open as she stared at it.
"This thing will do a few points of fire damage every time I hit someone? That's amazing! I've only ever seen Horizon blades do that, and this is better than their stats.”
"Well I can do it now," I said. “And that means you
can do it too!”
"Can you do another one?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I suppose I could try. That sword has two slots on it that can take spell infused gems. I only have a Lesser Fire infusion, but maybe it doubles the fire damage or something.”
“Worth a shot,” Keia said, handing the sword back over.
I pulled out another stone. This one was blue and had no label, but I saw other orange gems in my inventory that were listed as flame stones that could be used for elemental flame infusions. It would seem that I only had to figure out what a gem’s use was through trial and error once.
I had no idea if this new one could be used for a similar elemental ability, but experimenting and seeing what happened was the first step to figuring out how to exploit a system. I only had the one infusion, and didn’t know what would happen if I got the wrong infusion with the wrong gem. Or if it was even possible to put the wrong infusion in the wrong gem.
All I had to go on was past experience in other games when crafting went wrong, and the results usually weren’t good for the person doing the crafting. And there was still that warning about blowing shit up to keep in mind.
Not that it was going to stop me from experimenting.
I sighed. Trial and error could be a bitch, but it was all I had right now.
I did the same process all over again, only this time tooltips didn't show up. Not that it mattered. I knew what I was doing this time. It was almost as though the game only held my hand until I got the hang of doing something and it knew I didn’t need the machine assisted help.
Which was a little unsettling for a game that was plugged directly into my brain.
I held up the gem I’d chosen. I channeled mana into it for the Lesser Fire spell infusion.
Only this time something different happened. Different wasn’t necessarily good. The thing started to glow with a fitful light from inside. Not at all like the strong light that’d come from the first infusion. On top of that the gem started to get hot in my hands. Really hot.
Dangerously hot.
Fuck!
35
Enemy-Shattering Kaboom
"Um, is it is supposed to be glowing like that?" Keia asked.
"I'm not sure," I said. "I've never done this before, but I don't think that's a good sign…"
"Maybe you should get rid of the gem,” Keia said. "I don't like the look of that glow!”
“And I don’t like how hot this is getting,” I said. "But where am I going to toss it that's not going to bring down the whole damn mine on us? We’re surrounded by solid rock that’s gonna become chunks of falling rock coming down on our heads if this blows!”
"Here!" she shouted, pointing to the exit on the opposite end of the room. "Follow me!"
She dragged me to a tunnel on the other side of the crafting room. I wasn't sure where the hell we were going, but I didn't like the idea of going into another enclosed tunnel where there was even more rock that could crush us if there was an unfortunate magic reaction as a result of this spell infusion thing going wrong.
Then again I guess if it blew up in my hands I was going to the respawn point one way or another.
“I don’t think…”
"Here!" she said. "Toss it through there!"
A hole big enough to walk through appeared around a corner in front of us. I caught a glimpse of light. I had no idea where the hell I was, I’d gotten good and turned around in the maze that was the ring mine, but the gem was getting really hot. So hot that I could barely touch it even with the old pain slider turned down. So I chucked the thing towards the light and prayed that whatever fail state it was going for didn’t happen before it got to wherever Keia was having me throw the it.
I thought I could almost hear the sound of metal clanking somewhere on the other side of that big hole, but wasn't sure why I’d hear that considering so far the mine had been uninhabited. Not to mention that hole looked a lot like daylight.
"Where did I just toss that potentially dangerous spell infused gem?” I asked.
"That's an exit that looks down on the massive quarry that serves as the entrance to the Goblinsteel Mines raid dungeon,” Keia said. “There are stairs leading down from the ring mines into the quarry that serve as alternative entrances if a group doesn’t want to assault the gates.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Do you think anyone out there saw the gem? That would raise the alarm.”
“There's probably not anyone down there at this time of day,” Keia said. “No one pays attention to the ring mine entrances anyway since Horizon Dawn has this area on lockdown and they’re no use to anyone.”
"Probably not?" I asked. "What if it hits someone and hurts them?"
I didn’t know if they could be hurt, but I also didn’t think that tooltip about blowing shit up had been fucking around.
"I don't think you have to worry about that," Keia said. "Whatever was happening with that thing, it obviously wasn't dangerous or it would’ve…”
A loud whump was followed by a shudder in the rock that felt like the next best thing to an earthquake, complete with dust falling down around us. Then there was a muted echo, presumably as the sound from the explosion hit the other side of the quarry and bounced back in an impressive piece of sound design, followed by shouting and screaming where there’d been clanking metal moments ago.
"You were saying?" I asked, glaring at Keia.
She shrugged and smiled. "Okay, so maybe it did do something dangerous, but it's like I keep telling you…"
"You don't know anything about crafting," I said.
"Exactly!" she said. "You're learning! So I don’t know why you’re getting mad at me.”
"We should at least have a look at what just happened," I said. "That blast sounded pretty big. If I can create explosions like that by infusing the wrong crystal I want to know.”
“Why?” she asked. “Gonna create gem grenades?”
“The thought had occurred to me,” I said. “But mostly if these things have the potential to blow up in my face then you bet your ass I want to know how far I have to run to get clear of the blast if I fuck up.”
She shrugged. "I suppose taking a quick look would be safe enough."
"Safe enough?" I asked.
"Well yeah,” she said. "It's not like anyone can hurt us all the way up here, right?"
"I'm trusting you on this considering you've played this game longer than me,” I said.
Keia stepped out into the light first, and I followed. I looked down, and was astonished at what I saw down below.
We were well above a vast quarry cut into the earth with sheer rock walls in a ring all around. To our right was a massive hole in the ground with the remains of what’d once been ornate doors twisted off of that hole and tossed to the side like they’d pissed off a giant who’d gone to town on them.
I would’ve liked to know the story on that one. I also totally didn’t want to meet whatever the hell was powerful enough to do that in a dark alley.
At the other end the ground sloped up until the sheer rock wall became less sheer on both sides as it reached an entrance gate with two towers cut into the rock on either side that opened onto the forest beyond, but it was far enough away that I couldn’t make out anything happening over there.
Basically the whole place looked like the kind of place where they’d film an alien world for an old episode of Doctor Who nearly a century back, with a dash of the Black Gate of Mordor thrown in at the entrance for good measure.
Goblins and players alike milled about down below like angry ants whose nest had been disturbed, and most of them were scrambling to get away from a smaller smoldering crater that had presumably been created by my improvised grenade I’d inadvertently created by infusing the wrong kind of elemental spell into the wrong kind of gem.
Though that crater was only smaller when compared to the rest of the mine. If the goblins were any scale to go by, assuming they were the same size as the goblin guards in town or
the goblin that’d nearly knocked me over during my first few minutes in the game, then the gem had created a hell of a crater in the solid rock down there.
Not the kind of hole I wanted to be in the middle of while it was being created. When the devs created a fail state they played for keeps!
"Damn," I whispered.
"Damn is right," Keia said. "Look. You managed to take out someone from Horizon Dawn with your magic grenade. You don’t have to feel bad after all!”
I felt a moment of satisfaction followed by a moment of panic. After all, if I’d managed to take out someone from Horizon Dawn then there was also a chance I could’ve taken out one of the goblins. I didn't want that. I was trying to help them, not blow them to smithereens. Not to mention that player would go to the nearest convenient graveyard, while that goblin’s code would go to the great garbage collector in the sky.
Only as I looked down I only saw a couple of rapidly decomposing bodies. No remains that would indicate an NPC had met their untimely end down there. Phew.
“You're sure the only people who’d be down there are Horizon Dawn people?" I asked. “Like I didn’t accidentally kill someone who was minding their own business trying to level or something?”
"I'm sure," she said. “The assholes make people pay to go into the dungeon, remember? They’re not running a raid right now, so if you killed someone down there they were in Horizon Dawn. They were probably also watching the goblins they trapped down there and getting ready to kill them for their ore.”
“Shit,” I whispered.
Though the goblins who’d made their way into the massive quarry seemed to be taking advantage of the distraction I’d provided by blowing the place up. They were running towards those twisted gates.
“Where are those goblins going?” I asked.
“That’s the raid entrance,” Keia said. “No doubt they’re going to be with their other goblin friends.”
“Good luck, you little green bastards,” I muttered.
Horizon Dawn people were streaming towards the explosion, and the goblins seemed to be forgotten. I could at least take some comfort knowing my screwup was providing an opportunity for them to make an escape.
Spellcraft Page 26