Plus no one in the game had kids. I was pretty sure there were probably people shacking up though. Players getting a little textual with one another was a tale as old as the Internet.
The fully functional immersion of the Lotus hardware could make for some very interesting experiences, though of course I hadn’t tried that out beyond making out with Keia which had felt pretty real.
Something to think about later though. Right now I was more worried about getting these goblins on my side. I needed an army of workers, and an actual army of armed goblins wouldn’t hurt either. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get them on my side.
The goblin’s face scrunched up again. I wasn't sure if that was because of the abstract conversation we were having, or if the goblin simply lacked the mental capacity to have a deep and thorough understanding of anything metaphysical relating to his world.
It wouldn't be the first time a complete and total idiot rose to the top of an organization by virtue of being louder than everyone else, and a person whose first solution to any problem was killing his enemies and their women and children was the kind of person who probably had management material written all over him in a fantasy world like this.
“If we don’t kill them then…”
“We hit them in their bottom line," I said, spelling it out since the wheels in the Chief’s head were turning too slow for my taste. “We take away their ability to make money. Right now Horizon, the bad gods, are making money hand over fist by exploiting your world. What I propose to you is we seize the means of production and go into business for ourselves!"
I knew of at least one economics teacher I’d had who would’ve been apoplectic at my mixing of Marxist metaphors and capitalism, but whatever. It seemed to be working. The goblin was considering it, at least.
"What do we have to do?" the Chief asked, still sounding suspicious.
I wanted to smack Horizon Dawn’s leaders around for making this so difficult for me by making the goblins so untrusting. Then again if it’d been all sunshine and rainbows and hugs then I never would’ve been able to exploit the goblins’ hatred of Horizon Dawn in the first place, so I figured it was a double edged sword.
"That's easy," I said. "You're going to come work for me. I'm going to give you the ability to add spell infusions to mass produced weapons, and we're going to attack them right in their bottom line. Of course attacking that bottom line is going to involve some good old fashioned regular warfare in addition to economic warfare, but from what I’ve seen of you guys I don’t think that’ll be much of a problem.”
"And why should we go into business with you instead of just doing this ourselves?" the Chief asked, hitting me with a piercing look.
I held up my fingers. "Two reasons. The first being I'm the only one who can grant you the ability to add spell infusions to weapons.”
“But…”
“Why didn’t you fix those lights?” I asked, cutting off any protest before the Chief could start. “Your doorman here says you can do spell infusions, but those lights look like they’ve been off for awhile.”
The majordomo glared at me. Meanwhile the Chief glanced at the lights I’d fixed, then returned his glower to me. He also didn’t have a good answer forthcoming.
“That’s what I thought. Without me and my ability you're sunk. You can keep on doing whatever it is you’ve been doing, but you won’t get access to all the wonderful toys I’m discovering.”
Granting someone else my Spellcrafting ability was a skill that started out small, granting it to one or two people at first, but it looked like the ability quickly scaled.
If I had, say, an entire city full of goblins who were willing to work for me and add spell infusions to weapons in the capacity I was envisioning, well I figured I was probably going to level my Spellcrafting faster than anyone had ever ground out a crafting skill tree in the history of video games.
I was also pretty sure the game designers, even Trelor the magnificent, hadn’t thought of someone setting up a mass production operation with a bunch of NPCs acting as vengeful labor when they set that system up. From reading the tooltips it seemed more like the system they had in mind involved players working together in a smaller artisanal level cranking out custom pieces for other players.
I just hoped they didn’t try to patch it out once they realized what I was doing and how I was exploiting their rules.
"And the second reason?" the Chief asked.
"It's simple. The gods won't let you do it unless you have me around to help you out," I said.
I was taking a gamble here. This goblin had already shown multiple times that he wasn’t the greatest at understanding metagaming concepts. I wasn’t sure if that was because his mind had trouble wrapping itself around the fake world paradigm, or if there was something in their code that prevented the thinking creatures in the game from thinking too long and hard about the inconsistencies in their world.
"What does that mean?" the Chief asked.
Yup. This one was definitely having some trouble understanding what was going on here.
"It's silly, but it's the way things work in this world. Unless you have a playe… visitor helping you out and making things happen, suggesting things, taking you to war against other visitors, you're all going to sit here in this city waiting for them to eventually get to you and start the systematic slaughter of your people. I know you don't understand what this means, but you’re nothing but a raid dungeon to them, and without me that's all you're ever going to be."
I leaned in closer and spoke in a quiet voice that was laced with menace. Menace for Horizon Dawn. Not for the goblins.
"But if you follow me? I'm going to lead you to the kind of money and glory you couldn't even begin to imagine, and you look to me like the kind of goblin who can imagine an awful lot of money and glory.”
I paused. I watched the Chief’s face and intentionally didn’t look up at that crystal with the older goblin looking down on us. I wondered if I’d sold this as well as I’d hoped. The Chief still didn't strike me as the sharpest sword in the scabbard.
I heard laughter that was low and rumbling, and it filled the room. All the gems started to flash all around us in time with that laughter. Even the one I’d fixed. I looked up to see the wider goblin face in that larger multifaceted gem looking down at me and laughing.
The laughter got louder. To the point that the room seemed to be enveloped in an earthquake. I managed to keep my footing, but only just.
The reaction from the goblins in the room was even more interesting. The majordomo dove for the floor like we were in an old World War IV first person shooter and started kissing the floor with every bit of his face he could put on the thing. Kris and Keia looked around with interest.
The Chief simply rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair with a look that said he was so over whatever was happening here. The earthquake settled down.
“Where’s that earthquake coming from?” Keia asked.
I nodded to the crystal. “The goblin that’s been watching us up there is having a laugh.”
“The what?” Keia said, squinting at the gem.
“The goblin who’s been up there watching us the whole time,” I said. “He’s literally been right there this entire time.”
“I got nothing,” Kris said. “Looks like an oversized gem that might be worth something, but that’s it.”
The goblin cocked an eyebrow at me, then there was a flash. Keia and Kris blinked at the bright light, but when they looked up at the crystal again I saw clear recognition dawning on their faces. I guess the goblin in the crystal didn’t want to be seen by anyone but me. Until he did.
"Bravo human," that deep rumbling voice said, though there was a slight delay between the words and the goblin’s lips. Like there was some sort of lag between wherever the hell he was and us.
I managed to maintain my composure as I looked up at the gem, but only just. I got the feeling if I fucked this up then it’d be a
ll she wrote, and I tried not to think too much about how painful her writing would be.
"And who might you be?" I asked, knowing the answer but having to ask the question.
"I am the goblin king!" he bellowed.
"Oh my God," Keia said, her hands going to her face. "He has the hair!"
Her voice had gone high-pitched. Like the kind of high-pitched squealing that was usually reserved for teenage girls who were seeing the lead singer of their favorite boy band or something.
I had no idea what that ridiculous hairstyle was, though I had a sneaking suspicion it was a reference to that Labyrinth movie Keia had mentioned. I figured this would've been hilarious if I’d seen that movie and had any idea what the hell was going on or why it was so funny for a goblin king to have perfectly coiffed hair metal band locks, but I hadn't so it didn't.
"Nice to meet you," I said.
"Where's your respect?" the goblin king bellowed. “I am a king, boy!”
I laughed and shook my head. "I'm sorry, but that's not how this works and I think you know it."
"Excuse me?" the king bellowed again.
“This guy seems to like yelling,” Kris muttered under her breath just loud enough for me and Keia to hear. Then she looked up to the goblin king. “You might want to be careful your worship. You don’t wanna know what he did with the last king he ran into.”
“At least he isn’t spontaneously breaking out into song about magic dances,” Keia said, still sounding like she was trying very hard not to burst into laughter.
“Why would he do that?” Kris muttered back.
“You boys really need to watch Labyrinth, because clearly someone working at Lotus has,” she replied.
I ignored their back and forth. I was more concerned with negotiating with the goblin king. This could all still blow up in my face, and I really didn’t want to die down here with all the valuable stuff I was carrying.
So it was time to lay out how this was going to work and hope for the best while expecting a knife in my back at any moment.
"If you and your people want to survive then you're going to come work for me," I said. "As far as I'm concerned that makes me the boss here. Not you."
There was a grinding noise. For a moment I worried that maybe the earthquake caused by the goblin king's laughter had been enough to loosen some of the stone above us. Was that the sound of a vein of rock moving loose, slowly grinding its way down until it fell into the room and crushed all of us?
Though the more I listened the more I realized that no. It was simply the goblin king grinding his teeth being carried through the hellacious bass system in this room. The old goblin sounded really pissed off, but eventually he smiled. It wasn’t exactly a friendly smile. No, that was the sort of smile that told me I was going to have to watch my ass around this guy even if he did agree to work with us in the short term.
"You play a dangerous game, human," the king said.
I shrugged. "If I die it's temporary. If you die it's forever. I'd say that puts me at a distinct advantage, wouldn't you?"
The king laughed again. Again it shook the entire room.
"So what do you propose, human?" the goblin king asked.
“Ask him if you remind him of the babe,” Keia whispered, unable to hide her snort this time.
I ignored Keia and grinned at the king. "I thought you might never ask. I'm going to be able to supply you with weapons, but I'm going to need you to help me get some supplies, set up manufacturing facilities, and train goblins to start Spellcrafting the stuff we make. How does that sound?"
"I'm listening," the goblin king said.
67
Means of Production
“This place is amazing,” I breathed.
“Looks like you found your forge,” Keia said from behind me.
I turned and grinned at her. She grinned right back at me. Meanwhile Kris stood there leaning against one of the massive pillars trying her best not to look all that impressed as the glow from the hundreds of forges before us lit her.
Goblins moved back and forth throughout the forge room. It was the only word I could use to describe the place. It looked like something out of a set designer’s fever dream on the old Lord of the Rings movies when they were tasked with visualizing Khazad-dum. Or maybe the inside of the Lonely Mountain in the vastly inferior and overstuffed Hobbit trilogy.
“I trust these facilities are to your liking?” the Chief asked.
There was something about his tone that spoke of the pride he felt for this place, as well as an undercurrent that these facilities better be to my liking if I knew what was good for me. I looked down at the guy and ruffled what little hair he had on his head.
Which earned me an annoyed look, but whatever. It’s not like he could do anything to me. Not with his trapped king giving me the run of this place. For now.
The problem with making a deal with the goblin king was it was a deal that would require me to deliver on some pretty hefty promises. Then again I figured I was dead either way if I couldn’t deliver on those promises.
The only problem being if I didn’t deliver on them now then there’d be a hell of a lot of goblins who’d be dying a lot sooner than they would’ve otherwise. It was a heavy burden.
“So if you look here we have the forges where we make all the weapons that eventually go to the soldiers who make their way to the ring mines,” the Chief said, droning on.
I stared down at the forges. More particularly at how they were all heated up and ready to go, but it looked like there weren’t any goblins actually working them.
“All dressed up with nowhere to go,” I said.
“What do you mean?” the Chief said.
“He means we don’t have anything to actually forge,” Rezzik said.
That earned him an irritated glare from the goblin Chief, but he didn’t shy away from that glare. No, he stood a little taller and took a step closer to me.
It was an amusing echo of what he’d done that first day we met him in the forest outside Nilbog. It would appear that Rezzik was coming to rely on me as his protector. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but if he was willing to speak truth to the Chief then I was more than willing to let him help out.
“He’s got a point,” Kris said. “Those goblins down there aren’t doing jack shit.”
“Well we do have a slight supply problem,” the Chief finally growled. “We haven’t been able to get any materials back from the mine in some time.”
“You don’t have any materials at all?” I asked, incredulous.
“Well we have stockpiles of basic materials like iron, steel, silver, wood, and all that,” the Chief said, like that wasn’t even worth mentioning even though I could do a lot with those materials. “What we don’t have is goblinsteel! That’s the lifeblood of our people, and we don’t have any because those damned travelers have kept it from us in addition to holding our king captive!”
I held my peace as he said that. I got a strong feeling that the real reason the king was being held in that mine had more to do with game design than it did with anything to do with Horizon Dawn actually keeping the goblin king trapped down there.
It stood to reason that a raid boss with minions at his disposal that Horizon Dawn hadn’t been able to defeat so far was also the kind of raid boss that could use those minions to break out if he wanted to cause some trouble.
The only problem with that being he couldn’t break out and cause some trouble, because the scenario designers wouldn’t want him doing the obvious thing and leaving his dungeon to kick some ass.
It was a hell of a way to design the game, and something I was really going to have to talk to Trelor about. It was like a strange combination of lazy design layered on top of the amazing thinking creatures Lotus had created, and I honestly wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“So we need to get these guys some supplies,” I said, the beginnings of a plan starting to take shape.
“Well yes,” the Chie
f said. “But how would that even work?”
I paused for a moment and looked at some of the skill branches that were available to me under Armorcrafting and Weaponcrafting. I didn’t have any skill in either of those since I hadn’t been able to actually make any armor or weapons, but there were tantalizing skill branches that had to do with mass production that I couldn’t stop drooling over.
Also? I couldn’t stop thinking about the one truth that’d been a constant ever since I came into this game: a player could do anything they wanted regardless of their skill level.
Which hopefully meant that I could do what I was about to do even though I hadn’t even unlocked the skill trees yet. I guess we were about to test that particular bit of design philosophy.
“Hold onto your butts,” I said.
“Seriously?” Kris asked, turning and looking behind her like he was expecting one of those tentacle monsters we’d been worrying about while we were making our way through the depths to sneak up behind her and give her the business.
“It’s a quote,” I said. “And it’s time to see if this is going to work as well as I think it is.”
“If what is going to work as well as you think it is?” Keia asked.
“This,” I said, holding my hands out and thinking about my inventory.
Goblinsteel ingots fell out of my inventory with a loud clang. They slammed against the wide slowly sloping stairs leading down to the forge room, and that got the attention of every goblin in the place. Their ears twitched and they turned to look at the unholy racket I was making.
“What are you…”
The goblinsteel kept coming. Entire stacks of the stuff that’d been sitting in my inventory, inventory that I’d given a hell of a leg up by buying some bags with extra slots on the Auction House and adding some of those encumbrance reducing infusions I got from Torian’s armor, fell down into the place and went rolling out among the forges.
The goblins down there had been looking on in curiosity, but now their eyes were going wide. Oh yeah, they couldn’t believe what I was providing them, and yet still the goblinsteel continued flowing out like manna from the heavens.
Spellcraft Page 52