Heralds- The Proving Grounds, page 22
Sam rolled her eyes, but she was still grinning. “Excuses, excuses. Check this out.” She lifted her hands to her own headset and disappeared a moment later. It was only a few seconds before she reappeared.
The friends list said she hadn’t. She’d gotten it in one try.
Jen narrowed her eyes at her. “You could have done that any time?”
“Kinda not worth risking my account under normal circumstances.” She shrugged. “But yeah, I perfected it on the last day of the beta just to make sure it worked. Then I practiced the timing a bit more. Turns out you can fix it if you really want to but it’s about twice as complicated, and a bit less time.”
“Ugh.” Jen shook her head. “I’ll be happy with what I managed and hope Hank will fix it for me later… and be understanding in the meantime.”
Sam nodded. “Kinda seems like something he should have done, right?”
“Except if we made inroads with people it would make us stand out. Which is bad.”
“Yes, yes. Rules good. Paladin, I get it.” Sam sighed. “You’ve still got the guild tag. Might want to drop that.”
Jen glanced up. She couldn’t see her own name, of course. It might be better to lose the guild tag… but if she was going to show up around them again it would serve as a shield or sorts, preventing the prying eyes someone with no affiliation would get in the group setting, or walking around Morblina. She shook her head. “I’ll keep it for now.”
“Your call.” Sam shrugged. “Time to report in. Kail and Anna are waiting and I get the feeling Bulorn isn’t being terribly forthcoming.”
The beach was dark, but the lapping waves and gentle breeze were welcome just the same. Jen could use some calm right now.
There were lights up the hill. She took a breath and started that way.
Anna and Kail were seated and talking quietly. Jen glanced about as she and Sam crossed into the open square. “Bulorn?”
Kail shrugged. “We have not seen him since he left with Samara.”
Jen frowned. So he was invisible and loose to do whatever. He could be with the Seven Eyes right now planning something even worse.
Sam waved dismissively as she walked on by Jen. “No big deal. A bit has happened, so… lets sum up.”
It didn’t take long to recount the day’s events to Kail and Anna. When Jen and Sam were done Anna raised her hand. “Question. So… what do we do about Bulorn then?”
“Nothing.” Sam shook her head. “We couldn’t find him if we wanted to. Maybe Hank can, but until he does something to undermine us I say we leave him be. He’s most likely off moping somewhere, like Poe.”
Jen glared at Sam for a moment. “At any rate, the event lives another day. Two attempts on Tobin, both failures. We’re fortunate it didn’t cost us more.”
Kail nodded. “Indeed.” He turned his attention to Sam. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened when Tobin… killed you, I suppose?”
Sam shrugged. “Nothing. I was fighting then staring at an error in front of the login screen. Tried to get back in a few times but it didn’t work, so I left for a bit. Worked when I tried a few minutes later.”
The monk nodded. “So his sword is capable of killing us.”
“And doing it in one hit, for me at least. Probably for you too, Mr. Robe. Our plate guys might take a few more. Bulorn took a few on the chin before we went down but I’d put money on him investing every point he had into stamina to build up his hit points. So I wouldn’t recommend getting hit by that thing, no.”
Anna frowned a bit. “Like them or not, the Seven Eyes might have been our best chance to take Tobin down and win this thing for Team Herald. I’m not sure what we can do otherwise. We have a week but now we’ve burned through three days.”
Kail nodded. “The Seven Eyes yet exist, of course. They may need a recruitment drive… but they are still there. Having struck at Tobin and surviving will get them attention from his friends but also his enemies. We might yet wish to work with them.”
Sam shook her head. “They only worked with Bulorn, who they threw out to distract the Kingsmen like a sacrificial lamb. They were playing the long game the whole time, setting up stealthed people to handle the real dirty work. There’s no honor amongst those particular thieves.”
Jen shrugged. “We weren’t supposed to finish the event yet anyway. We’re right where we were, on hearts and minds duty. We still have time. The Seven Eyes is not the only big guild out there. It can’t be. We find a few more, do what we can to help them out and win some good will.”
Sam nodded. “And all the while supplying the proper honeyed words to the proper ears to get them to act as we wish.”
“Or…” Jen rolled her eyes, “we don’t try to manipulate them, just make it worth their while to help.”
“Do we really have that kind of time? My way works, which should be a thing you are learning by now.” Sam raised an eyebrow at Jen.
Anna chuckled softly. “I’ll see if we still have friends among the Seven Eyes. I can take a few hits if not, and get away if needs be.”
Kail nodded. “I’ll start looking for other enemies of the Kingsmen. Surely someone is still out for that silly title.”
Sam glared at the monk.
He bowed his head. “Apologies. I meant no disrespect.”
Jen nodded a few times as she mulled it over. “I guess Sam and I are better used for recon at the moment, being hard to track and all. Okay.” A glance at the clock in game showed it was pushing eight. “Not terribly late. Think I’ll try for another level or two tonight.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Says miss thirty four.”
Jen blinked a few times. She opened her character sheet.
Level 34. Huh. When had that happened? There had been a lot of fighting, and no doubt some stored up experience. She could only recall seeing the effect a few times in all the madness. “So… that’s pretty high, I guess?”
“For right now? Yeah. Suspiciously high.”
“Well, fortunately I’m invisible.”
Kail stood up and dusted off his knees. “Well I’m not. So I have work to do.”
Anna nodded. “What he said.”
The pair of them started for the map room.
Sam turned to Jen. “My stomach says we forgot food. Sandwich?”
22
The clock said 1:38 a.m.
Jen sighed as she stared at it.
Her alarm was set to go off at seven, as ever. If she went to sleep right now… she would get five hours and twenty two minutes.
Though that was unlikely.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, which changed colors as the TV swapped images. She couldn’t sleep without some noise. Losing power overnight always caused her to wake up. She needed the hum of electronics and the white noise of a populated world.
Of course, she couldn’t sleep right now either. But that was different. Insomnia had its up side when it came time to study, but it didn’t strike her with any rhyme or reason and had apparently decided tonight was going to be a long one. Then again, staying up all night to study had generally meant she would be groggy the next day. Not ideal for test taking. Those were heavy coffee days.
Maybe she could blame her dinner. Sam didn’t generally pick great places to eat. Oh it had tasted good, but that had little to do with suffering for it later.
Ten minutes of staring at the ceiling later nothing had changed. She didn’t feel any more tired. Quiet and calm had accomplished nothing.
The hell with it.
She was the only Herald online when she reappeared on the island. Not that that was terribly surprising at this hour. And she couldn’t really account for Sam or Bulorn anymore.
The crafting room was just as she had left it. Well, the room itself was. Some of the materials had been moved around, some placed back in the wrong boxes… how rude. She picked up errant materials and shifted them back to their proper places.
Her armor wasn’t terrible after the stop in Morblina, but she might be able to improve it a bit more anyway.
Unfortunately her crafting skills were way behind. It looked like it might take hours just to make a dent and they already sold better things in Morblina at a decent rate. Hmm.
The island was never exactly noisy, and she had been alone here before but this time it was… weird. The map table was right where it should be. Blue dots showed collections of players, more than she would expect at this hour. Surprising, really.
Fortunately Morblina was sparsely populated, and only seemed to get more sparse the further one got from the church at its center.
She appeared out in the woods and started walking toward the town. The guild tag she wore should keep most prying eyes away. Anyone told to watch for her would be checking the roster more than the grounds.
There were a few informal waves when she crossed into town, mostly just lifted hands. The place wasn’t quite at “ghost town” levels, but the vast majority of people she saw were NPCs.
The merchant Jen had bought from before was standing in exactly the same place. Handy that. When players set up a town they could choose to assign parameters to NPCs. Places to sleep, hours of operation, and so forth. Only hardcore RP types did it in the beta. To most people that just meant a time when services were unavailable for no real reason.
Pretty much Game play vs. Immersion. Age old debate.
Jen was fairly neutral on that one. After all, she loved places like the beach on the island. Very immersive, nice to hang out… but she also would have been annoyed if the merchant wasn’t available at 2 a.m.
She changed out most of her armor for bits that looked identical (it seemed the merchant only had so many appearance types available, pretty much one for each armor type), but with much better stats. Gear rated at level thirty five and available to wear at level thirty two.
Jen put on the new gear and sold the stuff she had replaced. Crafting just wasn’t going to keep up with her leveling pace. Maybe after all this madness died down. She enjoyed crafting, it just wasn’t a good use of her time.
Sad that an in game event ruined another part of the game. Seemed like poor design.
“Well aren’t we industrious.”
Jen glanced around at the sound of the female voice. Her eyes fell on a wolf lying on a stack of crates off to her left.
Jen raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t think I’d run into anyone at this hour.”
“Insomnia is a bitch.” Jesse the wolf rolled over onto her back, watching Jen with her upside down eyes. “You?”
“Same.” Jen shrugged. “Sometimes I like it. Sometimes… not so much.”
“You sound so young. It’s a curse.” The wolf rolled back over. “And level thirty four. Wow. Ahead of the curve. Seems like your nights might be worse than mine.”
“Got some pushy friends when it comes to leveling.”
“I can relate.” The wolf yawned and stretched its forelegs. “I prefer a bit more of a laid back pace myself. But not right now, no. Level level level. Kill kill kill. Run run run. Tiring. And yet, no sleep.”
Jen sat down on one of the crates and nodded. “Yup. I like crafting, but the stuff here is just better. Can’t justify the time.”
“I’ve always found crafting to be a bit dull. I argued for using motion to do stuff. You know, with the gloves and all. But I was overruled because some people still play with controllers.”
“They do? Wow.”
“Like cavemen.”
Jen blinked a few times. Something had almost slipped past her sleep deprived mind. “Wait… what do you mean you argued for it?”
The wolf tilted its head at her. “Oh. Oops.” The animal’s eyes swung back and forth a few times before nodding. With a bright green flash and a bit of smoke the wolf was replaced by Jesse herself seated on the crate in her fancy black attire. “Nobody to snitch so… hi, developer. Animator specifically, though people not in the know tend to think that means I draw cartoons. I do not, and could not if my life depended on it.”
“I guess there’s some truth to Tobin having developer support then.”
“Is that a rumor making the rounds? Because yeah. But if asked, tell people ‘no.’ ” She shrugged. “It’s not like we had a lot of time to plan all this.”
“The event seemed kind of sudden, yeah.”
Jesse frowned. “Oh, you have no idea.” She sighed. “So we do our best. Kinda working so far. Not so much for Tim, though.”
“Tim?” He was their rogue friend, but she hadn’t even said a word to him. All she knew was from observation.
“He’s a rogue. Well, he was a rogue running with us. All that ruckus earlier… well, no more Tim. Not until all this is done.”
Jen frowned. “Sorry.”
Jesse shrugged. “Bound to happen eventually. This dumb permadeath thing. Ugh. The game was not designed this way.” She shook her head.
So, even some developers were not happy with the rules. Strange. Then again the place wasn’t exactly a mom and pop shop. They had departments. There were bound to be a few developers who didn’t agree with anything or maybe everything that got changed.
“Yeah, not exactly ideal. I almost died right after the announcement. Didn’t take people long to turn on each other.”
Jesse frowned and her shoulders slumped a bit. “I’m sure people that would love to be playing are instead super pissed. Wish we could apologize but we’re more or less radio silent here.”
Admitting they were wrong might undermine the event, be a hit to their credibility. Marketing 101. Jen could understand that. Better to save face by sticking to their guns. There were people a plenty most of the time, the event must be drawing more in to replace those that got locked out. Maybe not at the same rate, though.
“Hey…” Jesse tilted her head, much as the wolf had before. “You’re buggy.”
Oh, shit.
“Well that’s rude. I don’t think I’m buggy at all.”
“No, I mean… you’re reading as offline. But I see you and you’re talking so… you’re online. Ugh. One more thing to throw on the list of issues all this has drummed up.”
Whew. “Maybe you’re list is weirding out?”
“Maybe.” Jesse tilted her head. “I admit no one else is online, crazy hour and all. But you’re also not online in the guild panel while others are.”
“Huh. Is that bad?”
“It’s just a bug.” Jesse shrugged. “Shouldn’t affect you much, aside from people not realizing your online. Can make it hard to get groups and stuff, though I think some people actually try to get that bug going on purpose.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Oh you know, sneaky types. People that don’t care to be social. Weirdos.”
“Huh. Well, test then.” She was about ninety eight percent sure it would work, but to keep up appearances…
To Amallia: Hello.
“Cool, still works.” Jesse nodded.
From Amallia: Polo.
Jen chuckled. “Nice. I should have thought of that.”
“Imma blame sleep deprivation.”
“Certainly evidence of it. Well, if you need anything and I can help, you can still send a tell. I’ll respond.”
“Likewise, assuming I’m not stuck doing guild stuff. Which is kind of unlikely, honestly. After all this is done though, I’ll be there with bells on.”
“I’m going to look for bells. I don’t want to be disappointed.”
“You’ll forget. This is all just an elaborate dream.”
“I wish.” Jen yawned.
“What was that odd noise? Are you sick?”
“I hear it’s contagious.”
“Eww.” Jesse scooted a few inches away on her crate. She paused and blinked at Jen a few times. “Umm… where did you get a relic?”
Shit.
Jen glanced down at the sword on her hip. No real use denying it to a developer. She drew Soulshine casually, the shining blade was bright in the dim light cast by lanterns and torches. “I found an ugly hunk of metal in the desert. Thought it was odd that I could pick it up. Had to run away from some giant skeleton things with skulls where their levels should be in the interface.” She turned the blade a bit. Light danced along it. “Found a place with a bunch of resources and crafters. Some people claiming they wanted to see it restored. Had to run from there, too.”
“I bet.”
“I admit I didn’t really know what it was for awhile, and since I found out I’ve been trying to hide it.”
“I’m mostly surprised because they’re not supposed to be in the game yet. And that’s, what… Soulshine? One of the later ones we’d add, too. At least intentionally. Always liked that model, though. Pretty.”
Jen frowned at the sword. “It’s not supposed to be in the game?”
“Well it’s in the files but it’s not supposed to appear yet, no. Not for months at least. A year or more, maybe. Relics are kinda stupid strong and can change the face of the map. The plan there, generally speaking, is to let things settle down then drop a relic to see how that changes them up. Drop another a few months later, then another, etc. There’s some talk about never putting them in at all if the world stays too chaotic. Or just one every six months or so, slowing it way down.”
Jen paused, the sword held up before her. “So, I shouldn’t have it.”
“Technically speaking, no.” Jesse shrugged.
“So… you’re going to take it away?”
The blond woman tilted her head and tapped a finger against her chin. “If I asked for it, would you give it to me? Be honest, I can tell. No wrong answers here.”
Jen stared at the shining steel for a few moments. It would mean she didn’t have to hide. She’d be able to move about in public without the thought of it being found in the back of her mind. It might make her job easier, getting around without the worries.
And really… she wasn’t the type to make use of it. It would never reach its full potential in her hands. The world would not be shaped by her actions. Not if she had any say about it.
“Yeah.” She turned turned the sword a bit, offering the handle to the druid.
