“How do you have this much?” the Chief breathed.
“Me and Keia made a little trip out to one of the ring mines a little while back,” I said. “Killed a shitload of Horizon Dawn people to make our escape, but I figure it’s totally worth it to have this little moment here. What do you think?”
Finally the goblinsteel rain started to slow to a trickle, and then the last one popped out of my inventory and that was that. I shook my hand a couple of times to make sure there wasn’t anything else in there, but it would seem that was that.
“Well there’s quite a bit in there, but…”
“Keia, Kris, would you do the honors?”
They both held their hands out, and a moment later more goblinsteel came flying out of their hands. I hadn’t been lying when I said we’d loaded ourselves down with the stuff, and they’d gotten some of those encumbrance reducing spell infusions too. If I didn’t miss my guess, I’d say those ring mines were probably meant to service a bunch of high level players going through the area and clearing them out, and yet I’d been able to go through all on my own and take care of business.
Which meant I had a hell of a lot of goblinsteel sitting around.
The goblins stared in disbelief. Their mouths hung open, and then they started talking. The talking quickly turned to cheers of joy. Cheers of joy soon turned to capering back and forth as they realized they were back in business.
When the last of the goblinsteel ore we’d collected landed it’d created a decent pile at the bottom of the massive sloping stairs. It wasn’t going to be enough to start my mass production plans, there was only so much we could carry even with that encumbrance reducing spell infusion, but it was a start.
“I’m going to need access to one of those forges, and some wood, iron ingots, and string,” I said to no one in particular.
Rezzik didn’t miss a beat. He started bellowing out orders to the shocked goblins down below, and that was enough to get all of them to hop to it.
I grinned again. Oh yeah. I was starting to think Rezzik was going to be one hell of an ally as we put our plans into motion.
I turned and gave the Chief a grin. His mouth was hanging wide open, which was a damn sight better than the annoyed frowns he’d been hitting me with for most of my time down here. Maybe he was starting to finally realize I wasn’t boasting about what we were going to do here.
Maybe, but that wasn’t going to stop me from keeping an eye on the short bastard.
Soon enough I was in front of a forge with the materials I needed out in front of me.
“So do you have any idea how this works?” Keia asked.
“No idea at all,” I said. “But this game is all about taking the abstraction that’s been part of game UIs since people first started making games and unabstracting it.”
“Is that even a word?” Kris asked.
“No idea, but it’s the perfect explanation for what they’re doing in this game, and we’re going to see if I can do it here. First I need to get some of this ore together and figure out this recipe though.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to have our people do it?” the Chief asked, sounding supremely annoyed at this dog and pony show we were putting on.
“Fine,” I said. “I was going to make a goblinsteel dagger. Could you please have one of your craftsgoblins make that for me?”
I stood to the side and gestured to the materials. The Chief stared at the reagents and his mouth worked, but nothing came out. He seemed surprised that I’d conceded the point to him so easily.
“Please tell me you’re doing something clever here,” Keia muttered.
“I really hope I’m doing something clever here,” I muttered back. “Only one way to know for sure.”
The Chief snapped at a couple of the goblin craftsmen who’d been standing around the empty forges looking like they were desperately in need of something to do. One of them walked up and took one of the goblinsteel ingots, then placed other supplies on a workbench next to the forge.
Then it stood there staring down at all those supplies but not actually doing anything.
“Um, is the goblin broken?” Keia asked.
“Not broken,” I said. “At least not in the way you usually think of a game being broken.”
“Then what’s going on?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” I said. “You have everything you need to make a dagger right there in front of you. So make the dagger.”
The goblin craftsman shot me an irritated look that said he thought I was mocking him. Then he looked to the Chief, and finally back to the supplies laid out in front of him. His mouth worked like he was chewing on something he didn’t care for.
He reached out hesitantly, trying to figure it out, then let out a sigh of frustration.
“I can’t,” he grumbled.
The Chief’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“I mean I can’t do it!” the goblin hissed again. “What’s so hard to understand about that? I can’t do it.”
“You won’t do it,” the Chief said. “Get someone else in here. Take him away.”
“Now wait just a minute,” I said, holding a hand up. “Let the guy stick around for a little bit. I have a feeling you’re going to get the same reaction from everyone you bring over here.”
The Chief grumbled something I couldn’t quite catch as it was low enough so as to not be heard, not to mention it sounded like the goblin language, then curtly gestured for more goblins to come up and make attempts. Every one of them went through the same motions. They’d look at the reagents in front of them, try to reach for them, then get confused and stop.
“What’s going on here?” Kris asked. “Are they all suffering from amnesia or something?”
“Not amnesia,” I said. “We’re just running up against one of those spots where the needs of game mechanics outweigh the needs to craft a fully immersive world. I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said they needed me.”
“Which means?” Keia prompted. “I know you think you’re being fabulously clever here and I’ll almost concede that to you, but maybe explain the clever thing you’re doing?”
“It’s pretty simple,” I said, switching to party chat so I didn’t give any of the goblins around us an existential crisis with my explanation. Though from the way the Chief reacted to me trying to explain the concept of a game world earlier I wasn’t sure they were capable of existential crises around the subject of living in a game world. “The goblins have memories of this world that go back to before it actually came into existence. To them their world has always existed, but we know that world only actually came into existence a month ago when the early access started.”
“Following you so far,” Kris said.
“So to them they’ve been using this forge room since time immemorial. The Chief and all the other goblins have memories of using this room to forge weapons for mighty armies that they used to do whatever it was mighty goblin armies did within the lore of this world,” I said.
“Makes sense,” Keia said.
“The only problem is I’m pretty sure this whole area is set up to be a faction that a player could maybe take over with a little poking and prodding and greasing the wheels in the right places. So while the goblins have memories of being this powerful force in the game and being able to make weapons and spell infusions, for the purpose of game mechanics they can’t do any of that stuff until a player character comes along and shows them how to do it, or tells them to do it,” I continued. “It’s the s ame reason why they’re holed up down here with a city full of goblins instead of using that army of goblins to overwhelm the topside. The game hasn’t given them the weapons to do it or the ability to even conceive of attacking the surface without a player to give them a push.”
“Wow,” Keia said. “Seems like a sloppy bit of design for a game that’s supposed to be so realistic otherwise.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing,” I said. “There are cracks all
around the place waiting for someone to come along and… Hold on a second.”
The Chief was still glaring at me. I’d been so distracted by the conversation in party chat that I hadn’t noticed the line of goblins who’d come and failed and then stood off to the side hanging their heads in shame.
“Sorry about that,” I said, switching out of party chat. “So are you ready to do things my way, or are we going to keep this up?”
“What is your way?” the Chief asked.
I grinned, knowing I’d won another small victory. For all that the Chief looked like he’d enjoy nothing more than to grab one of the weapons his people hadn’t been able to craft and use it to relieve me of my head.
“I thought you’d never ask. I’m going to need the recipe for that dagger.”
“And then?”
“Watch and learn.”
68
Kneel Before Conlan!
I rubbed my hands together and looked down at all the reagents waiting for me to do something with them. Then I looked to Keia.
I really hoped this would work. Partly because I was worried that if it didn’t work then the goblins were going to very shortly get pissy to the point that they killed our asses, but mostly because I wanted to look good in front of Keia.
I might be poised on the verge of total virtual world domination, but I was still a teenage guy whose main interest was impressing the girl.
“Go on,” she said, smiling and patting me on the shoulder. “I know you can do it.”
I let out a long breath. “I hope you’re right about that.”
I took the ingredients and touched the forge. The crafting menu came up, and this time when I scrolled down to the goblinsteel stuff on the menu nothing was greyed out. Because I had all the ingredients right in front of me and ready to go.
I still felt like ten different kinds of idiot for not noticing the extra materials requirements the first time around. Then again it’s not like I actually had any of those materials on me at the time, so whatever.
I thought about the recipe for the Goblinsteel Dagger, it turns out they had a treasure trove of recipes down here which was going to be ridiculously useful, and the thing highlighted to let me know the game had received my command. Then my arms started moving on their own, without thought, and picked up the items and started working them.
It only took maybe the space of five seconds before there was a little sad trombone noise. The items clattered down to the forge in front of me and I let out a low growl.
“He can’t do it either!” one of the goblins said.
“There must be a curse!”
I frowned and glanced to the Chief. He had a huge smile on his face that said he was supremely satisfied by my failure. Well I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction for long, damn it.
“It’s to be expected,” I said.
“We don’t have time for your excuses,” the Chief said.
“No, you don’t understand,” I said. “I’m trying to craft something that’s way beyond my skill level. There are going to be… never mind.”
One look at the Chief was enough to tell me he didn’t give a flying fuck about game mechanics. Heck, considering the way the goblins had reacted every time I started talking about game mechanics there was a good chance everything I was saying here was going in one ear and out the other and not actually registering in whatever passed for a brain in between those ears.
“Whatever,” I said, going back to the ingredients and thinking about crafting it again.
Again I went through the crafting animation. Again my body moved without me actually controlling it. Again there was a sad trombone noise, something that seemed just a little over the top if you ask me, and again there was that failure.
“I don’t see why we’re continuing this farce,” the Chief said. “You clearly can’t deliver on your lies. The king doesn’t know what he’s talking about trapped down in…”
I hit the crafting option again. My body went through the motion. I tuned the Chief out. I failed again. Sad trombone. I didn’t even bother listening to the Chief this time around. I just kept hitting the craft command.
That was the way this game worked, damn it. You could try a skill over and over again until you got it right. It just meant that the chances of success were way lower if you were stupid enough to try something that was way beyond your current skill level.
Like what I was trying to do right now.
“…traitorous to say something like that!”
I blinked and turned to see Rezzik standing toe to toe with the Chief. The Chief, for his part, had a half circle of guards all around us with their spears out.
“How dare you talk to me about being a traitor!” the Chief shouted back at Rezzik. “If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t have humans down here in the first place, and none of this would’ve happened! You know our laws!”
“And the king said he had confidence in these humans!” Rezzik growled. “Maybe you can play at being the king while he’s gone, but you can’t do this!”
“Whatever you’re doing, you might want to hurry it up,” Kris muttered in party chat. “Looks like our goblin friends are getting a little stabby.”
It didn’t help my concentration thinking about all the numerous ways the goblins had stabbed other people we’d met during our time in the game. It also didn’t help my concentration that this motherfucking piece of shit kept refusing to do its job and…
There was a ding and a Goblinsteel Dagger appeared in my hand. It was a dull burnished sort of metal. It didn’t catch the light and shine or anything like that, but it was lovely regardless. A quick inspect also told me it had a couple of slots for spell infusions.
I thought of my Spellcrafting and the crafting menu popped up. I quickly searched through my inventory for something that would be suitably impressive. I needed these goblins to realize exactly who was calling the shots around here, after all, and that would mean…
I found a gem I’d discovered in my experimenting and grinned. Oh yes, this bad boy would do quite nicely, thank you very much. I took out a gem that looked slightly yellow, the game designers for Lotus were nothing if not consistent in their lack of imagination when it came to this sort of thing, and quickly infused it with the proper spell.
I also prayed that this would actually work. The last thing I needed was for the game to throw a fail state my way when I was in the middle of a crowd of goblins who looked like they were trying to decide whether or not they wanted to follow the Chief’s orders to kill us where we stood, or follow the king’s orders as they were being relayed via Rezzik that we were to stay alive.
No matter. I was going to pull this off. All I needed was…
There was another happy little ding. I grinned as I held the dagger high over my head. All the goblins turned to look, their eyes wide, as a thunderstorm went off in the room with lightning firing towards the skies.
Okay then, that was way more impressive than I’d been hoping for when I put this together. The most I’d been hoping for was maybe a few little sparks or something that would let them know I meant business, but this would do nicely as well.
“I have the power of goblinsteel and Spellcrafting!” I shouted, my voice carrying over the argument and shutting the goblins up quite nicely. “And I will not listen to traitors who wish to fight the will of your king!”
I pointed the dagger towards the goblin Chief. I was mostly going on autopilot right now. Like we’re talking I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, but I knew I had to do something if we were going to get out of this because there were armed goblin guards listening to the Chief.
I guess the argument had gotten a hell of a lot more heated while I was doing my crafting thing. Goblins were moving in with swords drawn like they were going to give us some of the business. Kris looked like she was about to lay into the goblins, and Keia was holding her bow and arrow out like she was about to seriously make the goblins regret attacking us.
Well one of them was going to regret attacking us, but it was going to be the one who was the head of all this craziness.
Lightning arced out from the dagger and slammed into the Chief. He flew across the floor with one final angry scream. The goblin Chief came to rest against a massive column that stretched into the glowing darkness above. His body sparked a few more times, and it did that weird old animation where I could see his skeleton through his body for all that it made no sense for electrocution to do something like that, then he was still.
I pulled the dagger down and looked around at everyone. Then looked at my combat scroll which told me I’d just gotten my first combat points in daggers. There were also some crafting skill points near the top that hadn’t quite scrolled away that told me my failures were giving me points in Weaponcrafting.
I looked around to the goblins. Then to Kris and Keia who were staring at me like they weren’t sure who the fuck I was or what I’d done with the Conlan they knew. Then I looked down at Rezzik who was staring at the Chief’s charred body with satisfaction.
“Anyone else got a problem with me carrying out the king’s will in these here parts?” I asked, tossing the dagger back and forth between my hands. It sparked just a little which was a nice reminder to everyone around here what was waiting for them if they decided they wanted to subvert the king’s will.
“Right,” I said. “Now if you’ll have one of the crafters come over here, I think we can take care of this whole problem you’re having with not being able to actually craft anything.”
A few of the goblin crafters looked back and forth at one another like they were trying to figure out whether or not one of them wanted to be the first to try and approach me. I could understand that considering what’d just happened, but it was a little odd to see people looking at me in terror like that.
“I promise I’m not going to hurt any of you,” I said. “I really want to solve your problems, but I’m also not going to tolerate someone trying to kill me while I’m trying to help you. Especially when they’re going against your king’s will.”
Spellcraft Page 53