A NOTE FROM TENQUI
I have started to figure out tables. The reading the Great Game text and status should be fixed for all chapters by the end of the day.
How could such an ordinary day end so bizarrely? It all started like any other day. I heard my alarm go off for the first time and immediately hit snooze. It may be a bad habit of mine, but I am just not a morning person. After two or three times of this my brain had finally engaged enough to tell my body I had to get up to go to work.
Work, the very word, can both conjure images of horror and of satisfaction. How can work be both good and bad you might wonder? Try being a middle school teacher sometime and you will understand. When my students were well behaved, which occurred according to some arcane mystical schedule that science has not figured out yet, my job as a middle school science teacher was excellent and extremely satisfying. However, when middle school students are having an off day, everything just seems horrible. Hormones at that level make even the nicest kids seem bipolar at times. Heaven help the teacher that has somehow invoked the wrath of the middle school children.
There is nothing quite like the warm feeling you get when a struggling student finally understands something they have been having trouble with. I wish I could go back in time to experience that feeling once again, but middle school, along with many other things, has either disappeared or changed to fit the new reality that has become my life. Anyway back to the story.
After arriving at school and prepping for class the students started to arrive for homeroom. They were all talking about the mysterious disappearances happening all over the world. People would go missing for 24 to 72 hours and then reappear near where they had disappeared, but with no memory of what had happened to them. A few people could be explained away, but at the last count over 500 people in the United States alone had experienced this phenomenon. The number worldwide must be in the thousands to tens of thousands if not more.
It seemed that anyone over the age of 12 and under the age of 60 could be affected by this phenomenon. No one knew what was going on, or if they knew they were not telling the rest of us. Parents were starting to get worried, and imitators and sickos were already starting to appear to get their 15 minutes of fame.
I managed to make it through homeroom and the rest of my teaching day and was looking forward to my upcoming break. Friday was finished and I could already imagine how great my lazy three-day weekend would be. I know why we celebrate Memorial Day, and any holiday that gives me long weekends and helps us remember our fallen soldiers was OK in my book. I left school light hearted not realizing what big changes were in store for me.
As I was pulling into the driveway of my rental house I noticed that my daughters car was not there. Oh yeah, she was going down to visit my parents this weekend. As the oldest grandchild she was a little spoiled growing up, but she turned into a great young lady none the less. Being divorced for several years this meant that I could indulge in a weekend of underwear and video games.
I know what you are thinking. What self-respecting 30+ (thats as close as you will get to my real age) year old guy still looks forward to such things, this one, that who. I was an unashamed and overweight gamer geek. The kind of guy whose house is filled with fantasy and science fiction books, movies and games, and had posters of zombies next to the ones of dragons on my wall. I loved thinking and mentally preparing for disasters. I had not one, but over 10 different zombie apocalypse escape plans. Each one detailed and dependent on time of year, weather, location, who was with me, etc. I never thought I would actually need them, but it was fun to imagine scenarios and think about what I would do.
Just as I was locking the door behind me and getting ready to get comfortable I heard horns. Have you ever heard the trumpet music that announces kings in just about every movie out there? That was what I was hearing. At first I thought that my daughter had left some weird music on in her room so I started heading in that direction. Suddenly the whole world suddenly changed color. A semi- transparent large blue floating box with a message appeared before me.
Congratulations, you have been selected to be a beta tester for your worlds entrance into the GREAT GAME. You have 60 seconds from the end of this message to collect what you need to survive the next 72 hours. Good Luck!
Crap this cannot be real. This has to be some sort of elaborate prank, but what if it is not? I need to get ready, how much time is left? Quickly I grabbed my bug out bag and started towards the kitchen. I need more food, my bag only has 3 meals in it. I grab a grocery bag and start throwing as much canned food I can in it. Thats enough, what else am I forgetting? Weapons, I quickly grab a machete from my knife collection and I am heading to get a rifle out of the gun safe when I froze in place. I literally could not move at all.
Your 60 seconds are up. Transport will begin in 3..2..1..
Just like that my lazy weekend turned into a nightmare of survival.
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A NOTE FROM TENQUI
First Ever Story Written Here on Royal Road. The entire First arc is complete and will be uploaded throughout this next week. The second part will come slower as it is still being written. I hope you enjoy.
Please leave comments, suggestions, and reviews that are helpful. I do not care if you think it is wonderful or stinks as long as you leave constructive criticism. This whole process is to make me a better writer, which I can not do if you only rate 1 star and say it sucks. Tell me what needs to be fixed!
I have started to figure out tables. The reading the Great Game text and status should be fixed for all chapters by the end of the day.
CHAPTER 1: Is this real?
Everything was dark. I reached into my bag to find my flashlight. Wait I can move again. Turning on the light I could see rock walls all around me. It was a cave. How in the hell did I get here? Alright, lets break this down logically. There are three possibilities here. Number one I am part of the greatest prank of all time and someone will jump out soon and say gotcha. OK that is probably not going to happen, I really do not have anyone in my life who knows me well enough to pull this elaborate of a prank except my daughter, and she does not have the resources or funds to do it.
Number two I am hallucinating or in some sort of coma and this is all a dream. If that is true then I might as well go with the flow, because there is not much else I can do. Number three this is really happening and I need to survive for 72 hours. The message said survive which means that there is something or some situation I need to overcome. I think I will go with option three. Even if this is all just a dream it wont hurt to be a little cautious. All right, number three it is, I need to check out my surroundings and try to figure out where I am. Shining my flashlight around I take a close look at the cave I was transported to.
The cave looks natural with a few stone formations scattered around. It reminds me a little of Mammoth caves in Kentucky where my daughter and I went on vacation. It looks like there is only one passage out of here. As I get closer to the opening I note a sign posted next to the cave opening.
Welcome to the GREAT GAME beta testing dungeon. Your task is to reach the end of the dungeon alive within 72 hours. If you are killed or do not reach the exit in time you will be respawned where you came from. You will not remember any of this unless you complete the dungeon. Do your best and remember to HAVE FUN!
Well OK, at least now I know what I have to do. Wait a second, all those mysterious disappearances and people with no memory. They must have been Beta testers also. I guess they did not pass the test since they lost their memory. I hope I can do better, but lets be realistic. The chances of an overweight and out of shape middle school science teacher finishing what so many others failed at is not likely. I mean the spirit is willing but the flesh is fat. I have a huge wealth of game, novel, and science knowledge locked up in my head, but the ability to do physical feats left me sometime after high school. Too many years of sitting behind my teachers desk and eating too much does not an athlete make.
Well lets give this my best effort. First I better check my supplies and repack. I have always had what we zombie apocalypse guys call a bug out bag, just in case. It was pretty standard. One change of clothes, one liter of water, compass, three MREs, an emergency blanket, dust mask, matches, lighter, pocket knife, water purifying tablets, rope, candles, and a basic first aid kit. In addition to my bag I grabbed 12 random canned food items and a box of crackers, so I wont go hungry in the 72 hours. I also managed to grab one of my machetes.
Alright if I can find a source of water I will be just fine. Even if I dont find one I should be able to survive 72 hours on just 1 liter of water. It wont be pleasant, and I might get dehydrated, but it should be possible. Since I have seen game screens maybe I can find out more about what is going on. OK how does this always work in the books. I yell out loud, STATS!
Stats are not available during the beta testing dungeon.
Well that is disappointing, but at least I now that there will be stats eventually. How about, SKILLS!
"Skills are not available during the beta testing dungeon.
Is this going to happen for everything? HELP!
Help is not available during the beta testing dungeon.
This sucks. I get transported to a game world and remember everything the main character usually forgets and none of it is working. So frustrating! Alright lets just get on with it. It is time to conquer a dungeon. Man that sounded cheesy even in my head.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Short Chapters to begin, but the chapters do vary in length throughout the story. I know it says blue boxes (now), but boxes are hard to format so we get Blue Text for the Great Game right now.
All Great Game Green Text has been changed to Blue Tables for easier reading. Please comment or message me if you find any lingering references to green screens or boxes.
Thanks
Chapter 2: Reality hurts make it stop.
Double checking everything before I leave the starting cavern, I finally head out into the passage. Its strange even though the tunnels passage looks natural I get the impression that it is artificial. The tunnel has been running in a fairly straight manner for 15 minutes. Sometimes it narrows, sometimes it widens up. It looks like it is supposed to be mimicking a lava tube. That must mean that I am headed either to a vent on the outside of the volcano or towards the heart of the volcano. Nothing indicates which of the two options it could be. The temperature has remained constant and there is no discernable air flow.
As I have been walking, I have stopped randomly every few minutes and turned off my light and listened and strained my eyes to try and determine if there are any changes ahead of me. Finally, after 30 minutes of walking I reach an intersection. I decide to use this as an opportunity to rest and make a decision. I tried to calculate how far I had come so far. Probably 20 minutes of actual walking with all the pauses, listening and just plain distractions. So about 800 meters to 1 kilometer. There are just too many other factors to be more precise.
After I finish my break I pulled out my compass. I want to know which direction each passage takes so I can make a mental map of this place in case I need to run away, um I mean perform a strategic retreat. Thats weird the compass needle is pointing to the left hand passage. Almost as if there was something magnetic pulling it in that direction.
Well that solves my dilemma about which direction to choose. I really want to know what could mess up my magnetic compass. I feel that with this being a game like world unusual circumstances will either mean greater rewards, greater danger, or both. Either way this beta test is the best chance for me to find out with limited penalties. I mean if I die here, it may be horrible and even painful but the power that brought me here promised a respawn. With all of those people that lost their memory most likely being beta testers also, I can at least trust it that far. Who knows if respawning will be possible later, I cannot waste this opportunity.
As I start walking down the left passage I consciously make an effort to be as quiet as possible. I feel that I should run into something soon. What I dont know, but beta test implies I am going to be tested somehow. It looks like the walls are getting shinier. Curious I stop to check this out. Metal? It seems the walls are becoming metallic. Now why would that be happening. Is that a glow ahead? I quickly turn off my flashlight. It IS a glow. Somewhere up ahead something is giving off a light. I carefully put away the flashlight. If I let my eyes adjust I should be able to work my way forward without giving myself away.
I notice as I approach the light source that the passage seems to be opening up. Suddenly another screen pops up,
Welcome to your first challenge. There is no escape until it is complete. Remember like calls to like and anything else is useless.
Great what does that mean like calls to like? I examine the chamber that I have entered. Where did the tunnel I came through go? It disappeared. So thats what it meant about no escape, but what do I need to do? Suddenly a rumbling sound starts. What is going on? I look at the wall and too my amazement, a humanoid shape seems to be stepping out of it. I back up quickly while examining this new being. It seems to be some sort of earth/metal golem about 6 feet tall. It turns towards me and to my shock speaks, "Defeat me for the blessing of the Earth.
Defeat it? Its a walking talking man made out of metal, what should I do, splash water on it and hope it rusts to death? No wonder it seems that no one else has passed these tests. Isnt it just a bit unrealistic to think unprepared people can defeat magic constructs? I mean come on.
Its coming in my direction, well crap this not going to last long. I take out my machete hoping that it can do something against this thing. Thing? I need to call it something other than thing. How about Steve? Why is my mind wandering so much right now? Focus! At least Steve is slow. As Steve the metal golem reaches for me I dodge to the right and take a swing at his elbow trying to disable it. Perfect hit, and nothing. It felt like I was hitting a metal post. Oh well keep trying. Wait something is wrong. Why is my weapon stuck? Suddenly, Steves other arm comes around and punches me.
Damn it that HURT! While trying to unstick my machete Steve hit me. It feels like he might have broken my arm. Luckily I quickly retreated. No I need to tell the truth. I stumbled back and landed on my butt while crying out in pain. There went my hope of this being a game like world in which I wont feel any pain. I scoot along the floor as quickly as I can to give myself some time to think. OK quickly lets review the situation and come up with a new strategy, because well, my last one sucked and hurt like hell.
Primary weapon lost, my left arm is injured, pain level rising, fear surprisingly low. Right now I am angry more than anything else. I didnt want this to happen, Im not a hero, an athlete, or anybody special. What I am is pissed off. I should be in my underwear, lying in my hammock right now enjoying a good book. NOT trying to survive. None of that matters now, if I am going down I am going down fighting.
As quick as an out of shape 30 something can, I run as far away from Steve as possible. I start pulling out everything I can from my pack, looking for anything that might help. The cans of food. Maybe if I hit it hard enough I can at least knock it over. I really wish I can say what followed was an epic battle filled with inspiration and a mighty victory. No such luck.
Years later my daughter still loves to embarrass me by retelling this story as the reason why I always carry a magnet in my pocket. You see after I decided that throwing things would be the winning strategy, the first thing I grabbed out of my pack and threw was not a can of food but my compass. When my compass hit metal Steve it broke and Steve collapsed to the ground.
What the hell? How did my compass kill that thing? I hit it with my machete and nothing, but being struck by a little compass causes it to break apart. While I am trying to understand what just happened I cautiously approach the remains of the golem formerly known as Steve. I cautiously reach out with my foot and nudge the Steve pile. As soon as I touch it another green box appears in front of me.
Congratulations on finishing your first challenge. Results will be tallied at the end of the beta test and applied to surviving characters at that time.
Chapter 3: Goodbye Steve.
Well at least I know Steve died for a good cause, my survival and future stats. Now what exactly happened here? As I start to go through the rubble that once was Steve the Metal Golem I noticed that besides my broken compass and my machete there is a small white box with a red medical cross on it. Where did that come from. I know, it must be loot! My very first drop in the game is in front of me. I am so excited what could it be? As I open the box I see three red pills and a note. The note was just a description telling me that these are light healing pills. Well no time like the present to try these out, my arm still hurts.
I pop a pill and wash it down with some water. A warm feeling rushes through my body. My arm doesnt hurt anymore. Thats great! These pills are quick and efficient. I need to keep these easily accessible. After placing them in my front pocket I reach down to retrieve my machete. As I pick it up I try and wipe it clean. Huh, pieces of Steve are sticking to my machete almost as if they were magnetic. Thats it, I know what happened.
I remember the box at the beginning of the challenge. It read, Like calls to like and anything else is useless. Steve wasnt a metal golem; he was a magnetic golem. When my compass broke the magnetic needle must have impacted him. This wasnt a battle challenge, it was a riddle and preparedness challenge. Are all the challenges like this? I only beat Steve through sheer dumb luck. However, armed with my new knowledge I might actually have a chance.
Fully healed and feeling good about myself I looked around the now empty underground chamber. Some obvious changes had occurred. There are now four new passages leading out, each with an inscription above it. Passage #1 says trial 2 in red letters, passage #2 also says trial 2 in blue letters, passage #3 says trial 2 in white letters, and the final passage #4 has a glowing exit sign above it.
Alright calm down, this seems a little too easy. I just happen to beat a deadly golem through sheer luck and now I can go home. I need to think about this first. I quickly set up a little camp/rest area as best I can. I have 72 hours to finish the beta test and I have only used less than 5 hours. Why would they give me three days unless they felt it was necessary? Maybe in the past some participants just refused to move and the time limit is so the person or being in charge does not have to wait for them to starve to death or die of thirst. Somehow a feeling comes to me that this is the correct reason.
Since I have used very little of my time here and already passed the first challenge I decide to take a nap. I want to make sure I am fully rested and that the healing pill has worked completely before I make a decision on which path to take next.
I blink my eyes awake and check my watch. It has been just over an hour since I laid down for my impromptu nap. Other than a slight pain in my back from sleeping on the ground I feel pretty good. I open my non-magical med kit and wash down a couple of generic pain pills for my back. How cool is it that I can say this? I have a magical and non-magical medical kit. Focus, a decision needs to be made. I am pretty sure that since I have calmed down and rested I can make a good one. In the beginning the blue box said I had to clear the dungeon or reach an exit.
I am fairly confident that an exit will appear after each challenge is complete. Steve the golem told me that if I defeated him I would receive the blessing of the earth. From all of the fantasy novels I have read this most likely means I will have access to earth magic or its equivalent in the new world. I wonder if that means I can earn access to other types of magic if I continue the challenges. That seems logical.
Each of the new passages have the same message but are different colors, red, blue, and white. That may be a hint to which type of magic element that they correspond too. Since I have already earned the blessing of the earth the simplest explanation would be red=fire, blue=water, and white=air. I need to remember though that the earth challenge was part riddle and used an obscure part of earth, namely magnets and magnetic force for the challenge. Is it even worth risking my life for more magic or should I just get out of here while I can?
If this beta test is just a minor example of the new world, then I need to be as strong as possible in order to help out my friends and family. Alright my decision is made, I am going to try for another element, but which one? Air is always portrayed as the opposite of Earth and Fire and Water are often linked as being opponents. I think I will skip Air for now. It seems best that I try for one of the other elements.
Which one would be the most beneficial to me. Earth is often listed as a great protector, usually strong in defense. I need something for offense. As much as I would like to just hide in a bunker and hope this all goes away there are two major problems with that strategy. First and foremost is that I do not own a bunker to hide in and secondly no matter how good at hiding I am eventually I would have to come out for food or water. Better to be prepared form the beginning than be completely clueless after a year or two of hiding.
Fire destroys. Fire is always portrayed as an element of destruction. If I can get fire magic to complement my earth magic I should have my basics covered. The red tunnel it is. I need to pack everything up and prepare as best I can for my nest challenge. The longer I wait the more I may question my decision. Lets do this.
Chapter 4: Fire Burns
Alright what can I do to make sure I am ready for this challenge. It will obviously have something to do with fire, but it may be only a certain aspect of it. Lets see what I have. Keep the health pills in my front pocket for emergencies. I also have matches and candles. These both have potential to be needed in the fire test so into the other pocket they go. Hold the machete in my hand so I dont have to touch anything hot with my bare hand. Finally, I check my water bottle. It is about half full. That should put out or bring down a small fire. OK I am as ready as I can be.
I walk towards the passage with the glowing red letters that read trial 2. No turning back now. As I enter the passage the walls start to glow red and the temperature starts to rise. It seems that I am at least right about which element this is going to represent. Up ahead I see an entrance to what looks like another chamber. It looks almost identical to the entrance to the chamber I took the Earth challenge in.
Now is the time to be cautious. Just like before I slowly approach the entrance as sneakily as I can. I can understand dying in a challenge, especially against magic monsters, but if I get killed for something stupid like not examining an area carefully for obvious traps or hazards I will never forgive myself. I cautiously peer into the next chamber. It looks just like the previous test taking chamber. In fact it might be identical. The only difference that I see is that the walls are glowing red and are not metallic. The temperature is also much higher here. Seeing nothing suspicious I start to walk into the chamber. Just as before as soon as I cross into the room a blue box pops up,
Welcome to your second challenge. There is no escape until it is complete. Remember sometimes confronting a being with its own mortality is more advantageous than actually killing it yourself.
Fantastic another riddle, at least this time I know that killing whatever shows up is either A) not a good idea, B) Impossible, or C) All of the above. What is going to show up this time? Across the chamber the wall starts to flicker like firelight. A golem of fire starts to step out of the wall. Seriously, is this just a copy paste of the last challenge with a new riddle and element? If so this might be easier than I first thought. Aww crap I just jinxed myself didnt I?
Quickly, I need to solve this riddle before this new golem, lets call him Bob, turns me into a crispy critter. Why does my mind always start to wander when I am in a dangerous situation? Is it a coping mechanism? Focus! What could scare or show a golem of fire its own mortality. Mortality reminds me of death. What is left after a fire dies? Ashes!
I need to show this golem some ashes. I fumble in my pocket for my matches. I dont want to take my eyes off this golem for even a second. How come it is just standing there? Wait a second it kind of looks like it is moving its arms back. Is it stretching? Suddenly Bobs arms snap forward and 2 glowing balls of fire are heading straight for my head. I flop to the ground in my best imitation of dodging. The two fireballs impact the wall beside me. Man that was close. I need to finish this before Bob starts too, ITS RAISING ITS ARMS AGAIN ALREADY? Cut a fat man a break.
I get to my feet as quick as I can. Bobs arms snap forward once again. Four! There are four fireballs this time. Were two flaming balls of death not good enough? Two fireballs are aimed at my head and two are aimed at where I flopped, I mean dodged, to the floor last time. Dang, I think this mean it will keep increasing the number of fireballs each time and each new set will go towards the direction I dodge. This means I need to finish this quick or I am going to run out of places I can dodge those burning orbs of doom.
I somehow manage to pull out my book of matches while dodging to the left this time. Close but no cigar Bob. As the fiery orbs of destruction strike the cave wall to my right I confidently strike a match and blow it out. I strike a heroic pose, or at least what I imagine a heroic pose looks like. I shout, Look upon your doom Bob of the fire clan! Umm shouldnt he be disappearing at this point? I know I got this riddle right. What am I missing? The magnet golem Steve broke apart as soon as the magnet touched him. Thats it, I need the ash to touch Bob. I throw the match with all my might right as Bob launches six burning spheres of ultimate crispiness.
As I scramble to the right to avoid certain death I watch my match travel all of about three feet before falling down to the ground. What an EPIC FAIL. Why did I think that would work? What do I do now? If I have to get that close to Bob, I am going to fry. I need something that will travel far enough that I wont get burned. My candles, candles will definitely travel that far if I throw them.
I reach for one of my candles while starting to move diagonally to my left. A diagonal direction is just about my only option at this point. If I am lucky I might make it out of the fireball throwing pattern. Man am I out of shape. Bob looks like he is about ready to throw again. I hope I get the timing of this right. As eight different flaming orbs of destruction start to spread out, I try and do a forward combat roll. Man those guys on T.V. make this seem so easy, they never talk about how much it hurts your shoulder to do one of these on hard ground.
One of Bobs fireballs just grazes my foot, blistering my heel. It burns! Ignore it, I have to finish this. I light a match and hold it to the candle wick. Come on, come on light you stupid thing. Finally, it catches fire. I quickly blow it out and throw it at Bob the fire elemental. Direct hit, and poor Bob is now just a pile of ashes on the floor of the cave.
I open up the healing pill box I received from beating Steve the Magnificent Magnet Man, popped my 2nd pill, and relished in the warm glow of its curative power. Now that I have healed up my injuries it is time for every gamers favorite action, checking out the loot. I walk up to the ash pile Bob left behind. Lets see if this is the same as last time. I cautiously touch the ashes, and as soon as I do another blue box appears.
Congratulations on finishing your second challenge. Results will be tallied at the end of the beta test and applied at that time. As a bonus for being the first human on Earth to pass two challenges in the beta test of the GREAT GAME all previous results and memories of the beta test will be applied regardless of the outcome of the final two challenges.
Well that message was different. It seems that aside from pain and suffering there is no downside to me continuing now. I get to keep my upgrades no matter what. Dont get me wrong, Im not looking forward to the next two challenges, but at least I know now I am getting a reward for my efforts no matter the outcome. I can think about this later, lets comb the ashes for the loot.
Oh shiny! What is that? As I sift through the ashes of Bob I find what looks like a glowing ruby. What could this be? How can I find out? I know, Identify.
Identify is not available during beta testing.
Dang I forgot that commands are turned off. I need to make a mental note to check this thing as soon as Identify works. Worst case scenario is that I now have a ruby worth a lot of money, best case scenario is that I am now a proud owner of a magic gem.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Longest Chapter Yet. It is a bit of an info dump. I figured out tables. Stats and Great Game text should be easier to read. Enjoy!
Chapter 5: The End of Beta
Since I knew that I would get rewards no matter what happened not, the next two challenges almost seemed anti-climactic, just kidding. The next challenge I decided to tackle was the water element. Long story short, the water golem was poisoned. I defeated it with my water purifying tablets, but not before I almost drowned while simultaneously being poisoned. Not a fun experience. Luckily, or maybe by design, the loot drop for this golem was a small case with a green cross on it. The note inside said they were recovery pills that would remove abnormal statuses. Translation, it would cure the poison.
After the water golem I decided to take a break before trying the last challenge. I was down to a single health pill, two recovery pills, and was completely wiped out physically and mentally. After a nap, a meal, and making use of the little boys room on the far side of the cave I feel much better. Mental note to self, add toilet paper to bug out bag. Using a sock is not fun and now I only have one clean sock. Alright it is time to start the final challenge.
The last challenge element is Air. I have no idea what to expect on this one. If the golem is made out of air how would I even, see it? Would it glow? Will I need to breathe on it to kill it? Oh well lets see what it actually is. As I entered the last challenge cavern the now familiar blue screen popped up.
Welcome to your final challenge. There is no escape until it is complete. Remember like calls to like and anything else is useless.
Great it is a repeat of challenge one. I am going to have to get close enough to breathe on this thing which means it is going to be able to hurt me bad. I stare that the wall waiting for the air golem to step out. All of the sudden the wall starts to crackle and spark. That is no air golem! God damn you screwed up game logic. Thats a lightning golem. OK dont panic, do I even have anything that can beat that thing?
I am running out of time, its already started the standard if you beat me blah blah get the blessing speech. Think Mark think. What is lightning? Lightning is a collection or movement of electrons, its energy, and its fast, do I have anything that matches that description? My train of thought is interrupted by the sight of a miniature lightning bolt heading my direction. I dont have time to dodge and my machete being metal takes a direct hit. I start twitching in pain from the residual electrical effects that arced into my body.
That could have ended much worse if the metal in the machete had not attracted the lightning bolt and the rubber grip helped to partially insulate me. Wait, electricity is the answer. I do not know if this screwed up GREAT GAME will acknowledge my brilliance. Only one way to find out. I take out my flashlight as quick as I can and start to open it up. Please let this work. As soon as the batteries hit my hand I toss them at the lightning golem. Too late it launched another bolt at me before they could reach it. The last thing I remember before blacking out is severe pain, and falling towards the floor.
Uhh, why do I hurt so bad? Did I sleep wrong? What is that smell? I slowly blink my eyes awake. Hanging in front of me is one of those stupid blue boxes. I guess it wasnt just a bad dream.
Congratulations on finishing the elemental trials beta test. All bonuses and reward will be tallied and applied when the user exits the beta testing area. Thank You for playing the GREAT GAME.
As soon as I finish reading the notice the box disappears. Wow, I survived. From the way I feel it must have been a close thing, and what is that awful smell. It smells like a combination of bacon, sewage, and burnt hair. Oh wait thats me. I must have lost control of my bowels after that last big shock. Thank god I keep a change of clothes in my bug out bag.
After cleaning myself up as best I can and swallowing my last healing pill I feel like a new man, or at least one that can function long enough to get home. I stumble over to where I last saw that stupid lightning golem. I mean seriously, I know that lightning happens in the sky which is full of air but that sucked. What is that? Bonus, there is both a red cross box and a glowing white gem. I collect everything and repack in preparation for going home.
There it is, the final passage with the glowing EXIT sign above it. I can finally leave this place, rest up, think and plan what Im going to do next. I walk through cautiously, afraid that I will be sent somewhere other than back home. There is the screen I want to see,
Transport back to Earth will commence in 3..2..1..
My couch, never have I been so happy as to see my couch. As I collapse onto the couch I see another blue screen,
Final results of the beta test have been calculated. Surviving participants will be able to check their status after all body modifications have been made.
What? What body modifications? I never agreed to any of this.
Body modifications will commence in 3..2..1..
Dear God the pain! Arrghhh! I pass out for the second time today.
As I slowly blink the sleep from my eyes I noticed I was on the couch. Huh, I must have fallen asleep watching T.V. last night. What a bizarre dream. It all seemed so real, but the good dreams always do. Oh well back to the real world.
I stumble towards the bathroom to take care of my morning business. Wow I must have been really tired last night. I even fell asleep in my clothes. As I leaned over the toilet to help improve my sleepy morning aim, I thought to myself how cool would it be though if it was real. Just think status and,
Name: Mark Anderson Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1
Level: 3 - 10% Unspent Attribute Points: 15
Strength: 12 HP: 120
Intelligence: 20 MP: 400
Wisdom: 20 HP/Regen: 12% per 15 min.
Agility: 10 MP/Regen: 20% per 15 min
Constitution: 12 Luck: 20
Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire 100%
Water 100% Air 100%
Oh Jesus, that blue screen popped up as soon as I thought status. That means it was not a dream. Man what do I do now. First things first, how do I turn this screen off so I can finish my morning business. The other screens just faded away. This one is staying in front of me but is transparent enough to see through. That is probably a safety feature so no one is blinded by alerts.
I know how about I use HELP. The status screen disappears only to be replaced by,
Welcome to the Great Game help section. How can we help you today?
Hmmm... Do I just think my question and this guide will answer me?
Yes.
Ok that was a little creepy. Lets try it out. How can I remove game screens from my view?
Staring to the side for 3 or more seconds will automatically cause screens to fade out. Users may also employ voice commands, with the default being set to Command Off.
Help Off. It worked. I quickly finish my morning rituals in the bathroom and retreat to my thinking spot.
Once I have relocated to the recliner I start my brainstorming session. Ok I remember being surprised by a green screen, being given almost no time to prepare, dick move by the way Great Game, luckily I had my go bag, I bumbled my way through the beginning of the challenges, got extremely lucky, and barely survived. Then at the end something about body modifications then waking back up.
Wait, body modifications! Oh crap. I run towards my daughters room and stand in front of the only full length mirror in the house. What the hell? The game must have put me on a diet. I must be 50-75 pounds skinnier. I am not a twig by any means, but I have lost a lot of weight. Was that the only change? Maybe the help screen can answer some questions. HELP.
Yes
Can you explain the body modification process?
Body modification occurs as soon as a subject is safe after placing stat points. Body modification only occurs only if needed.
Can you give me an example please?
Certainly, if a player places 5 points into their strength stat then as soon as feasible the Great Game system will alter their musculature to reflect this new level of strength.
Why is body modification so painful?
Most users experience little to no pain. The only time pain is involved is if the body modifications are extreme.
Wow, I am pretty sure the help menu just called me fat. How rude, accurate, but rude. So my new physique is just a reflection of my new stats.
How are ability points earned?
Users get 5 stat points per level and can be awarded bonus points for unique achievements and through the title system. Bonus points from titles are not available until after reaching level 10.
I must have gotten my extra points from being the first to pass the beta test. I will save my unspent points until I am sure of all the ramifications of using them.
How are levels usually gained?
Users get xp or experience points for defeating monsters, defeating other users, completing quests, using skills and abilities, earning titles, or inventing or discovering new items or spells. The amount of xp is determined by the game system and is a combination of difficulty, user level, and a proprietary algorithm.
When will this world fully enter into the Great Game?
This world will enter the Great Game in 4 stages. Stage 1 is testing. This stage is occurring right now. Stage 2 will occur on the following summer solstice. Stage 3 will then occur on the next winter solstice and finally stage four will occur one year after the introduction of stage 2 on the next summer solstice.
Can you explain each stage?
Information on each stage is only available for the current and next stage. Testing stage 1 is to make sure the sentient species on the planet is able to interface with the Great Game system. Stage 2 will introduce class F through C monsters to the planet, limit or change certain aspects of technology, and introduce quests and dungeons.
Can you please elaborate on monster classes?
Monsters are ranked from F class, the easiest to defeat, up through E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS, and X class. The higher the class the more difficult the opponent. A very loose comparison might be F class can be defeated by levels 1-10, E class by levels 10-20, D class by levels 20-30, C class by levels 30-40, and B Class by levels 40-50. These are estimates, due to a wide variety of personal skills on the part of humans and monsters lower level adventurers could defeat higher class monsters and vice versa. Once Monsters reach A class they develop an intelligence no less than the human race and the correlation starts to fall apart. A class is equivalent to levels 50-75, S class levels 75 -100, SS class Levels 100 150, SSS class Levels 150 -200, and finally X class is equivalent to level 200+. Please understand that this is just an estimate and the number of factors including intelligence, skill, elements, location, etc. can drastically affect the outcome of battles.
That is an extremely thorough explanation. What about technological limits, what can I expect to happen after changeover?
Initial technology limits are determined by the Great Game system as needed. Common initial limits have included nuclear dampening, loss of electrical energy storage, and limiting of chemical and nuclear explosives.
I read a lot of fantasy and LitRPG books and I think I can summarize or guess about these restrictions. If I make guesses about restrictions can you confirm or deny them for me?
"Yes that falls within acceptable parameters for the help system.
I was hoping that this loophole would work. Ok think about all of those stories you have read over the years. What was common between them all? Many stories bring technology down to a level that would reduce pollution and allow mother nature to regenerate the planet. This would mean no large scale fossil fuel burning, or anything above cottage scale or minor electrical generation. The system already said that energy storage would be altered so no batteries. No nuclear detonations or decay to prevent world-wide problems. However, in some stories work-around tech is acknowledged and used.
Help screen, will technology still work as long as it is powered or energy stored by a magical alternative?
Yes.
Will guns and weapons that use chemical reactions cease to function?
Yes.
If a magical propellant or alternative is created will those firearm types be allowed?
Yes.
Have magical firearms, batteries, and explosives been used successfully in the Great Game before?
Yes.
Help Off.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Probably the last upload of the day. It is the weekend and I have things to do. Expect another 3-5 chapters each day until I reach the end of the first arc/book. After that releases will slow down as I will be writing and posting at the same time.
Chapter 6: Making Plans
Now that I have some concrete information I can start to make some real plans.
Mark Andersons End of the World to Do List:
Figure out what to tell everyone. Do I try and convince them? How do I explain my body change?
Figure out how to use magic. I have these awesome blessings of the elements so I need to make sure not to waste them.
Train my abilities and try to learn skills I feel will be necessary in the new world.
Invent or discover ways to keep necessary technology operating. (Like indoor plumbing)
Keep using help screen to learn as much as I can ahead of time. Knowledge is power.
Find a new place to live. Much of what I want to do cannot be done in or near my rental house.
Secrecy on many things is probably a good idea. If I show off my new abilities, I will likely run into problems. Either scared people turning into mobs, witch hunts, or even government dissection. I hope that last one is an exaggeration, but I have watched a lot of movies and it never ends well for the person/being that has unique powers.
Help, the Great Game system has been modifying memories of failed beta testers correct?
Yes.
Is this because only users are allowed knowledge of the Great Game?
Yes.
Will anyone notice my body modifications?
If noticed non-users will attribute it to a change in lifestyle or another easily explained reason.
Alright, the first item on my checklist has been taken care of without me having to even do anything. Is there anything I am forgetting? Oh yeah, those other commands that were locked during beta testing should be available now. Lets try them out. I go and grab the two gems I received for beating those elemental golems. First up is the ruby.
Identify:
Ruby Flawless Enchantable, Value = 1,000 gold, Mana Capacity = 500
Excellent, now the white gem,
Diamond Cloudy Enchantable, Value = 250 gold, Mana Capacity = 125
Ok it seems that the mana capacity is the gold value of a gem. Wait a second, what is the currency of the Great Game?
Help, please list the common Great Game currencies and exchange rates. Examples would be appreciated.
The currency of the Great Game is standardized as follows:
100 copper bits = 1 silver piece
100 silver pieces = 1 gold piece
1,000 gold pieces = 1 platinum piece
1,000 platinum pieces = 1 mithral coin
During stage 1 and 2 local currencies can be exchanged through a users inventory screen after reaching level 5 with Great Game currencies. All exchanges of Great Game currency and local currency will be subjected to a 1% conversion fee. For example, 1 of your gold pieces currently would exchange for $1,728.32 in U.S. dollars.
Wait a minute one of my gold coins? I have gold coins? INVENTORY!
0 of 240lbs used
0 copper 0 silver 200 Gold 0 Platinum 0 Mithral
240lb capacity that must be my Strength + Constitution X 10 lbs. I bet the coins were from defeating the elemental golems. It is nice to know I do not have to pick up every single coin, but I will still have to search for special drops like the pills and gems.
I do the math in my head really quick and realize that I now have over $300,000 in gold in my inventory. I really need to start figuring out a way to level myself up. Not only will it make myself and my family safer, but I can use some of my Great Game wealth after level 5 to outfit a good place to survive the transition. If I can come up with some sort of excuse to invite the family over during the change-over period I will be able to keep them safe without having to explain the unexplainable.
I continued to think of oddball things for the rest of the day and gave the poor help person/program/spirit or whatever it was a good workout. I broke up my think fests and questioning time with reading. I started to reread and skim through everything I had in the house that dealt with the LitRPG, Game Worlds, Survival, and end of the world scenarios. It was both to refresh the information in my head and also a little experiment. I will check my status in the morning to see if my idea is correct.
When I wake up the next morning I immediately called up my STATUS,
Name: Mark Anderson Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1
Level: 3 - 60% Unspent Attribute Points: 15
Strength: 12 HP: 120
Intelligence: 20 MP: 400
Wisdom: 20 HP/Regen: 12% per 15 min.
Agility: 10 MP/Regen: 20% per 15 min
Constitution: 12 Luck: 20
Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire 100%
Water 100% Air 100%
I was right. Studying and learning along with experimentation granted me some experience. More than I expected. I assume it will be diminishing returns as I get better in the same fields. I bet only new information and skills add to the experience bar. Probably the same way a child learns and experiences in school and has rapid growth through the first years of their life. They can continue to learn as they get older, but the new knowledge and skills take longer to master. Alright let the learning montage begin.
Hah, I wish I could just do a learning montage. That would make everything else so much easier. Instead I continue my weekend reading binge for some easy xp. I nervously wait for my daughter Nicole to get home from her trip to my parents house. If she does not notice the change than my plans for training can go forward.
A few hours later while I was taking a break I heard my daughters car pull up outside. This is the moment of truth. Play it casual Mark, dont get nervous. I meet my daughter Nicole at the door, Hi sweet pea! Do you notice anything different about your dad?
Well Dad your diet and exercise seems to be paying off, you are looking good, replied Nicole.
The help screen was right. She rationalized away my sudden weight loss. I can work with this. By the way kiddo how was Grandmas house? With that Nicole was off and running and started to give me the updates on all the family happenings. Wait a second if the Great Game system wants to stay hidden it should help me hide money transfers and life style changes. I can use this to have more time to prepare for the upcoming changes.
When Nicole got to a stopping point I tried out my new theory. Hey Nicole my investments that I made look like they might be paying off soon. If that happens then we can build our dream house, I can stop working full time, and you my dear can attend any college you want.
Thats great Dad, when will you know? Excellent, she never even questioned my fabrication about some mysterious investments.
I will probably know sometime this summer.
That sounds great, dont forget to call grandma and tell her the good news.
OK, sweet pea I will.
Just like that I was able to verify that the changes to my lifestyle that I needed to make in order to prepare for the Great Game should be covered. My excuses only need to work for a little over a year anyway. Then everyone will know and experience the Great Game just like me. Hmm, if I build a big enough place I can protect others besides my family. Oh well I will firm up my plans as I go along.
The next week was filled with me wrapping up my normal life and scheduling my new training. I resigned from my teaching job as soon as I reached level 5 and was able to transfer my gold coin funds into dollars. I set up classes in self-defense for 2 times a week and signed up for as many workshops about survival, gardening, cooking, canning, home repair, and just about anything else I could think of that might be beneficial to survival in the new world. I was hoping to learn new skills and abilities and continuing to earn some slow but safe xp to raise my level before next years summer solstice. My new job was learning and preparing. I felt that I could check my progress at the end of each month and compare it to the past to check how I was doing and make any changes if necessary.
The summer passed by quickly. I have been steadily progressing in skills and abilities but the most exciting thing to me is my new spells that I have created. Since all I had was affinities to elements and the knowledge that mana existed I decided that this was a you can develop your own spells kind of world. I studied meditation and was able to develop some spells that will be extremely helpful. However, the most interesting thing to me is with my 100% affinity I can manipulate any of the elements in any way I can imagine. It just takes concentration and time.
I have also finally distributed some of my earned attribute points to check on how they affected me. The results convinced me that while I primarily seem to be a mage type character, I cannot neglect my physical attributes if I want to survive. After I double check my stats and gains for this month I think I will be able to start on #6 of my to do list. Find a new place to live. STATS
Name: Mark Anderson Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1
Level: 7 - 153% Unspent Attribute Points: 4
Strength: 15 HP: 150
Intelligence: 30 +10% MP MP: 660
Wisdom: 30+10% MP/Regen HP/Regen: 15% per 15 min.
Agility: 15 MP/Regen: 33% per 15 min
Constitution: 15 Luck: 20
Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire 100%
Water 100% Air 100%
Using some of my unspent attribute points has let me determine that constitution X 10 determines HP. Intelligence + Wisdom X 10 determines MP. Also you get a bonus if a stat passes 20 points.
The most interesting thing I think is still the no limit to spells. Spells are only limited by the imagination. More complex things take more mana and more time. My spells are just short cuts to a type of action I have performed over and over. It is quicker to use but not as powerful. For example, my fire bullet spell cost 4 mana and does approximately my intelligence rating in damage, but I can cast the same spell, same mana cost manually for twice as much damage. However, it takes twice as long to cast. Basically it seems that spells are quick for battle where manual mana manipulation is more efficient outside of combat. I have tons of ideas for more spells but space and having to hide what I can do has limited my experiments so far. I do think that spells are all that normal players will get until they advance their affinities to 100% in an element.
I think that with my overall progress I am ready to implement my master plan to raise funds and build a safe place for my family and friends. With the conversion fees I have a little over $300,000 dollars from the 200 gold coins I won from completing the beta test dungeon. After questioning the help section over the summer I have found out that I can place precious metals and gems from this world into my inventory and have them converted into U.S. dollars also for a fee. The more money I have the better off my family and friends will be. I can buy supplies and set up a survival compound. Not just a compound, but an entire safe domain. I discovered the land management section of help last week.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Alright,
If I did this correctly it should automatically update this chapter on Monday.
Heres hoping I hit all the right buttons.
Chapter 7: Making Money
Under the land management section of help I learned that if you own a certain amount of land different perks come with it. For 160 acres you can designate 10 acres as a sanctuary. This means that within that space no monsters can spawn. They can still travel through but they cannot live there or appear there. At 320 acres the sanctuary size quadruples to 40 acres. At 640 acres the sanctuary size quadruples again to 160 acres and you start to have access to the town/village developer.
The help menu seemed reluctant to give me details, but I inferred from other questions that it would allow for magic building of infrastructure and possibly access to a Great Game store. Once you hit a personal property amount of 2 square miles things start to get interesting. The sanctuary size only doubles to 320 acres but your area is now considered your domain. In a domain the owner is considered the ruler and gets special bonuses and can confer bonuses to others. Basically you become a noble and can give perks to others. The part I almost missed when questioning help but will be the best for me is that when you become a ruler you are allowed to claim surrounding unclaimed land and add it your domain. At 5 square miles you officially become a king with a kingdom and earn even more perks under the Great Game system.
Help also taught me that the land has to be directly owned by an individual or family. The government of the United States does not count. Basically all of the national forests, parks, wildlife refuges etc. will revert to unclaimed land. Each person over the age of 16 can Homestead 80 acres a year. Finding all of this information solidified my plans for prepping for the Great Game change over. I am going to purchase as much land as possible next to a national forest as possible. It has to have at least 1,280 acres so I qualify as a domain. Then using the claim function, I will claim as much of the unclaimed forest land as the system will let me. This should vastly increase the safety of my family and friends because of the large sanctuary, bonuses I can hand out and access to a Great Game store that many people will not have at the beginning of the game.
In order to make this work I need more money. I have been working on developing my long range sensing capability to help fix this problem. I first got the idea from several different stories and anime. If I send out a pulse of mana through the ground, air, or water I can get a return and sense where living things are along with a general sense of the terrain. This works similar to a bats echolocation ability. I decided if it could do this then it should just be a matter of imagination, intent, and amount of mana to sense other things besides living organisms. So I started some simple experiments.
I first tried to become a human metal detector. It took some time but was surprisingly easy to do. After I figured out how to sense all metals, I just fine tuned my efforts to sense precious metals and gems. I can now sense concentrations of precious metals and harvestable gems up to 500 meters away. I expect this range to increase with practice. I do have to concentrate for 30 minutes to an hour, so it is not a fast process. However not only can I sense the metals and gems I can call them to me with double the mana cost.
So the next two weeks will be a camping trip with my daughter. One last hurrah before she starts college. We will be traveling to a variety of areas up and down the Appalachian Mountains where precious metals and gems have been found before. This is totally by coincidence of course. I will also be checking out several properties in the area. The Appalachian Mountains provide security, water, relatively mild seasons and lots of land for sale and in the way of national forests and especially the Appalachian trail which connects a lot of different types of government land together. I think it will be an ideal area to start my sanctuary.
After copious amounts of research, I discovered that Appalachia, especially North Carolina, is renowned for pockets of gem quality diamonds, sapphires, rubies, but emeralds most of all. Small deposits of precious metals such as copper, silver, gold, and platinum can also be found relatively easily. Most of them are not large enough for commercial exploitation, but should be perfect for my needs. I hope to come back with millions after this 2 week trip. I can only hope that I am as lucky as my game title says. The funds that I need are in the ground, I just have to find them.
What a fun trip that was. I had a great time with my daughter and spent a significant amount of time searching and finding the funds I need. After 2 weeks I was able to significantly increase the amount of money I have to work with. I lucked into enough gems that I can hold a few back for learning to enchant purposes. Diamonds hold air enchantments, Rubies hold fire enchantments, Sapphires hold water enchantments, and Emeralds hold Earth enchantments. There were also many lesser quality gems that can be used as enchantment holders like topaz. They only work as well but are much more plentiful than the precious gems.
On this trip I was able to find,
50 flawed gems 100 Gold 4 Platinum Pieces worth of loose platinum
22 cloudy gems 250 Gold 432 Gold Pieces worth of loose gold
10 flawless gems 1000 Gold 616 Silver Pieces worth of loose silver
I plan on keeping all the flawless gems and 2 each of the cloudy gems, converting the rest into Gold and into dollars. With the conversion fees charged by the Great Game, I should have just over 21 million dollars. At least I know that with minimal effort on my part I can make a ton of money and be able to keep financing this operation. I also realize that this disparity and easiness of me making money will only last so long. When the Great Game starts and coinage is the only method of trade my regular fortune will be worthless. I need to use this conversion to the best effect I can now while it helps. Mental note to self, convert everything back into Great Game currency before the switch over.
I have selected my starting piece of land and will purchase everything that I can around it, connected or not. I have the unfortunate feeling that a lot of land will become ownerless after the Great Game starts through human deaths. My primary piece of land is along the French Broad River, and is approximately 1400 acres in size. There are several other pieces of land available near it and it runs up against the Pisgah National forest. The Nantahala national forest is within 15 miles also. Its perfect, close enough to small towns and Asheville to scavenge for supplies, and isolated enough that it should be safe from large bands of marauders. It has plentiful natural resource throughout the area.
I contacted my lawyers and real estate agent and started the paperwork for purchases of the land I had selected. I also left instructions for them to purchase any and all other pieces within a 5 mile radius. I am feeding them and the world a story about starting an Eco Tourism resort. This should help the Great Game cover up my large purchases of land and supplies.
By the time my land purchases go through another 2 months have passed and I have a general map of my new domain and a rough idea of how I am going to set things up. I have spent of my recent windfall on just the land purchases. 16 million dollars has bought over 5000 acres in different pieces. My main section of land is just under 2200 acres. After I move up to my new land I will start searching for more funds to continue my plan. I will need millions more to be able to finish what I want in time. Rush jobs always cost more.
I have moved a mobile home and some empty shipping containers moved out to one of the pieces of my new property in North Carolina. I will use this as a base of operations and storage/workroom area until my main Eco-Tourism/Survival Compound is built. Speaking of building things I took inspiration from several stories and have started developing my Earth Manipulation skills into tunneling and wall building. I am keeping the above ground construction small and explainable for now, but I am pretty sure I could build basic housing and structures for over 100 people in less than 12 hours with just my current skill level. The detail and speed should increase as I practice.
Underground is a different story. I dig tunnels like some sort of Giant Mutant Mole on steroids. I do not even have to dispose of the Earth I dig out. I just compact it around the tunnels and rooms underground to help with stability. Reading all those reincarnated into a dungeon stories I read paid off for me. I have built a ton of interconnecting tunnels and bunkers under most of my property. This will allow for more people to occupy without increasing my defensive perimeter and will also serve as storage and a safe place to retreat to if needed.
Doing all of this construction, building, and experimenting on how to keep people safe has made me realize one important thing about my plan. The largest flaw in my plan to save people is that I hate people. Not individually or I want to kill someone, but bunches of people, large crowds, etc. I seriously hate interacting with them. I guess it is more that I hate large groups of people. Large groups tend to follow a herd mentality and do stupid things that piss me off. I am most happy with 1 or 2 people surrounding me at most. This is creating a bit of a problem for me. I love my family, I want to help save my friends and humanity as a whole, but I want to do it with as little interaction with them as possible.
I mean I am building this refuge for people after the Great Game, but I do not want to be a daily part of it. I think the best answer for now is to build everything as I planned and set up a group or ruling council to be in charge. I will reserve the right as the highest leveled and ruling monarch of the area (per Great Game Rules) to veto anything I want. I can use my magic to keep an eye on everything from a distance. This will let me build my own lair somewhere away from the primary refuge I am constructing and let me do my best impression of a hermit while still being available to help out if truly needed. I think this set up will be along the lines of sects in Wuxia and Xianxia eastern novels. I will act as the hidden benevolent Patriarch that can swoop in and save the day and other people can have the headache of running the day to day details. I like this plan.
Along with the new ruling council I can also develop a school for all the children. One that will finally pay back those brats for all the hell they put me through as a teacher. I mean I can develop a fair and balanced curriculum that will teach them everything they need to know to survive in the new world. Ha, Ha, Ha, I am going to make those twerps suffer. I mean that adversity will give them the strength to survive in the new world. Wow, I seem to be holding onto more resentment than I thought. Oh well, I hope it does not change or alter my behavior in the future.
Chapter 8: Its only stealing if you are caught
Since I have moved up to my new land in North Carolina I have seen a temporary boost in my stats and abilities. As long as I stay on my land I receive these benefits. If I move more than 1 kilometer away from my claimed land under the system these bonus benefits disappear. The help screen has hinted that the range will increase as my holdings increase. This means I need to keep expanding until I reach an optimal size for my little kingdom. We need to be self-sufficient and able to defend ourselves without out growing so large that management becomes an issue. From what I understand if my kingdom reaches a certain size than the bonuses I enjoy could become permanent and passed down as a legacy to my heirs.
Even though owning and ruling over more land is extremely beneficial, I am going to make it a secondary priority. After the Great Game goes live I am sure that unclaimed land and opportunities to grow the kingdom will present themselves. I believe that my priority needs to be on training and resource acquisition. I think that the more in game currency I can accumulate before monsters and other distractions and troubles appear the better.
I am about 99% sure that the easy money I am making now is because I am either the only one or one of the few people at this point that passed the beta test. This gives me a huge advantage until the Great Game is fully integrated. There is basically no competition and the threats from the game world have yet to materialize allowing me to travel and use time intense spells that might still work later but will undoubtedly be harder to use without interruption.
As for my wealth I am burning through money like there is no tomorrow. I need to go on another resource gathering trip, but I want it to be outside my projected area of my new kingdom. The resources that are in my kingdom I want to leave alone and have them be there for when I need them later when travel is sure to be much harder. I do have a somewhat risky plan to get massive quantities of gold and other resources that I need. I am about 75% or better confident that it will work.
I think that this is a high enough percentage that I have to try. It should give me a massive influx of gold and other precious materials to spend at the beginning of the Great Game to outfit my entire kingdom with equipment that would be almost unheard of for starting players. If I do this right I will only have to make this one extended trip and can use the rest of the time until the switch over building up my area and making myself better.
There is so much to do and so little time to accomplish everything that I feel is necessary. I need to speed up my training and underground construction skills and increase my level if at all possible. It will be essential to my plan and will allow me much greater confidence in accomplishing my goals. I will check my progress again before the Christmas Holidays, spend a little time with family, and then start on the big plan.
I have discovered that I cannot accomplish everything myself. I am going to have to start delegating things to others without letting them know the real reasons behind what I am doing. This realization also made me understand that I need to identify helpful and potential employees, friends and others to have close by during the changeover. Travel will be very difficult once the Great Game starts so I need to get these people close by before it happens.
Some of the critical needs areas that I have identified are doctors/nurses, soldiers/law enforcement, gamers, farmers /ranchers, veterinarians, general contractors, and just general workers. I do not care about nationality, religion, language, etc. As long as they are good workers and have the potential for loyalty to me it will all work out. There will be no discrimination in my little kingdom. I plan on having it run mostly as a meritocracy where your contributions to the greater good are rewarded with wealth and power. This means that anyone regardless of background can do well as long as they put in the time and effort.
I need to come up with some method to interview and find out if these people will be compatible with me and my goals. I could probably use my mana sense to watch skin temperature, pupil dilation, and other bodily signs as a crude lie detector for in person interviews. I can rely on back ground checks and other things until technology stops after the Great Game starts.
Finally Christmas break has arrived for my daughters college. I did not want to start my new plan until after I had a chance to see her and the family again. She has come home and is remarkably upbeat about all of the changes I have made in our lifestyle. We have a new house and compound, new wealth, new businesses and land and she just rationalizes everything away. Its actually kind of creepy.
I have accumulated more wealth while practicing and traveling locally, but with my estimations it will definitely not be enough for my grandiose plans. I have increased my skills and level and feel confident my plan should be feasible. The boost from my titles once I reached level 10 actually was a big help and raised my confidence in my scheme working.
Lets see where I am at now: Status
Name: Mark Anderson Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1
Level: 12 - 46% Unspent Attribute Points: 5
Strength: 25 HP: 250
Intelligence: 40 +10%MP MP: 800
Wisdom: 40 +10% MP/Regen HP/Regen: 25% per 15 min.
Agility: 25 MP/Regen: 40% per 15 min.
Constitution: 25 Luck: 30
Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire 100%
Water 100% Air 100%
What I have planned will either be the start of a brilliant, but short criminal career. Or an absolute failure and I will end up in jail. However, even if I end up in jail I will just stay there until the Great Game starts and then break out using my overpowered stats to make it home as quick as possible.
I am going to rob gold and precious metal depositories, diamond brokers, and mines around the world. Hopefully if my plan works no one will ever even know it happened. In fact with the Great Game switch over in about 6 months I am not even sure I can call it robbery. More of a wealth redistribution trip before the start of the game. I like that, it sounds less villainy.
From everything I learned, governments do not count as owners of property or wealth after the Great Game Switch over. Thus everything they own such as gold depositories, land, etc. reverts back to the first come first served rule. Rather than letting somebody else just walk into Fort Knox after the Great Game starts and having all of that wealth to themselves I am going to take a significant portion of it and other places around the world to use for my new kingdom.
I have been practicing my fine elemental manipulation for the last few months for a reason. I am going to approach each area from deep underground, using silence and earth manipulation spells to not set off alarms. I wont ever enter any vaults. I will use Earth manipulation to drill holes up to where the gold and other precious metals are stored and then use a trick I have been working on to siphon off gold and other metals without leaving a trace.
The tricky part is I now have enough control over my mana that I can hollow out the bars of precious metals and replace the interiors with stone. This will leave just a thin film of metal surrounding a block of worthless rock. In practice I have been able to average around 500 bars an hour. I have been practicing with copper bars and should be able to increase my speed with practice as I travel the world. I can continue doing this until I get tired, run out of mana, or just feel like I should move on to the next location.
This plan should net me an untold amount of wealth. The majority of which will be the new kingdoms treasury with enough left out for personal use. I hope to accomplish several goals of mine at once with this plan. First and foremost I will increase the amount of funds that I have to be able to help others directly after the switch. Second it should increase my magic and control to unprecedented levels as I drain the gold deposits. Finally I should also be able to get ideas and samples of various helpful things in my travels. This could be from architectural designs, management techniques, and just exposure to how other cultures work.
During my world travels I will also add in some public mine tours and tours of played out mines to increase my take without exposing myself to more risk. Hopefully I can also meet and invite several people from around the world to my compound. This will ensure a healthy mix of peoples and cultures for my little kingdom.
My first stop will be the Fort Knox gold depository. I reserved a hotel suite in a nearby town and started the first heist of my career. After checking into the hotel and resting until the afternoon, I then rented a car and traveled to the closest deserted area near Fort Knox. 10 minutes after parking and close observation to make sure no one was paying attention I let my Earth magic do the work. I created a cave underneath the surface of the ground and added several small ventilation holes so I would not suffocate. After checking the area one more time I quickly opened up an entrance to the underground cave and entered. I then carefully closed the entrance behind me.
I use my earth magic to tunnel down around 100 meters and then started tunneling towards Fort Knox. About every 50 meters I make a ten to fifteen centimeter in diameter ventilation shaft to the surface and leave an air enchantment next to it that would circulate air. When I first started to practice this technique back in North Carolina I almost killed myself. Nothing dramatic like a collapsed tunnel or anything, but rather I just assumed that the air holes I created would refresh the air. They do allow fresh air in, but the small size means that without an air enchantment next to them to keep it flowing it takes too long to replace the bad air with good. I almost suffocated to death before I realized what was happening. After a lot of experimentation this is the system I came up with.
My earth magic automatically reinforces the walls of my tunnel and my mana sense keeps me moving in the correct direction and helps me avoid any problems like underground pockets of water, well pipes, and anything else that would cause me a problem. Tunneling under Fort Knox using magic is surprisingly easy. I reached the main vaults in under two hours. Now comes the hard part. I have practiced this technique at home and I sure hope it works as well here as it did there.
I carefully drill upwards creating a spiral ramp, with my mana sense at full power, until I am just underneath the foundation of the vaults in Fort Knox. I use my magic to bore two 10 centimeter test holes into the bottom of the vault. This is the tricky part where I may have to retreat. I do not know all of the alarms and other tricks they might have for the vault rooms. I know a regular drill would have a 99% or greater chance of setting something off from the vibrations and destruction it would cause to get through the concrete and metal, but magic is different. With my earth magic manipulation matter just sort of flows to where I want it. It is quite strange to watch, but the good part is that no vibrations or violence whatsoever happens to the material, which in turn means that I should not set off any alarms.
Alright, phase one is complete, and I do not think I set off any alarms. I will wait for 30 minutes before I start phase two just to be extra careful. While I am waiting I cannot help but think about how cool it would be if I could brag about this adventure and my powers to people. I know it would cause more problems and could result in my death, but I am about to rob Fort Knox and no one will ever know. Well I guess after the changeover I can let people know. It is not like there will be a functioning government that would be able to arrest me for prior crimes at that point. But I still have the urge to tell people now just because for once in my life I am doing something so freaking cool, even if it is illegal, and I cant tell a single person.
Wait time is up, on to phase two. Phase two is much more difficult. I have practiced on bricks and lead blocks, but this will be my first real test run in the real world. What I want to do and have accomplished in practice is hollowing out the bars of gold just leaving a shell of gold while filling them in with stone. Why fill them in, I am afraid that if the weight changes too much a pressure sensor might go off. I do not want anyone to know that there has even been a robbery. People looking for people with new found wealth and spending habits might stumble into my projects and land acquisitions in North Carolina.
I carefully start the process of switching out the gold in the bars above me for stone. I send the stone up one small access tube I drilled and the gold comes down the other. After 30 minutes I take a break and check on my gains. I will also wait another an hour just to make sure the switch has not tripped some alarm. The gold I have liberated is just in a shiny pile next to me. I start cutting it into chunks and placing it into my inventory. After I max out my carrying capacity I exchange it into Great Game currency. This is somewhat of a cheat that I discovered. The Great Game help section told me that I could exchange currency until the changeover. I have also realized that I am limited in what I can carry in my inventory. However, after several months I realized something. The Great Game does not count game currency weight against your inventory limit. That means I can carry 200 kilos of gold bars and max out my inventory or exchange them for Great Game gold coins with a small transaction fee paid and basically have the same amount of wealth but no penalty on weight limits.
This helped me solidify my plans for this wealth redistribution trip. I mean what good is it to steal two tons of gold if you cannot move it or sell it? Sure I lose a little bit in transaction fees from switching it to gold coins, and I lose a little more for switching back into usable currency when I need it, but considering that it wasnt my money to start with I am making out like a bandit. The half hour rest period is up and no alarms. It looks like my little plan is working.
The rest of the day was quite boring. It was basically just a rinse and repeat operation until I retrieved all of the easily accessible gold on the bottom floor. I am not going to get greedy and try for all of it. That is how people make mistakes and get caught. I finish converting the last of the gold I stole into game currency and start the long walk back to my rental vehicle. All along the way I seal up the tunnel and air ventilation holes behind me. No need to leave evidence that will just confuse people.
That was easier than I thought. I need to be careful about becoming overconfident and screwing up in the future. Now where will I go for my next heist? After I make it back to the hotel I use a little google time to research where I need to be going. It looks like I will be travelling to the Denver and Philadelphia mints, the bullion depository in West Point, N.Y and the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan. That should do it for the United States. I then will travel to London and the worlds largest stash of silver.
Those are the easy ones. After that I need to access mines for gems and other precious metals at the source. There are several other reserves around the world, but they are not in areas where I could pass off my tourism easily or where there is enough precious metals to make it worthwhile. After London I think I will head to Africa to hit up some precious metal mines in South Africa and some gemstone mines in some of the relatively safer African countries. I need to be smart about this. I have limited time to accomplish my goals and I still want to play tourist a little bit as I travel around the world. It would be tragic to get to greedy and get shot in some third world hell hole, just because I wanted a little bit more.
Where else? Madagascar and Sri Lanka for sapphires, Myanmar for rubies, Colombia for emeralds, and Australia for a large variety of metals and precious gemstones. I think I will stop in several touristy areas along the way and if I find something or someone I want or need for my new kingdom I will buy it or offer them a job. Ok, this plan sounds like it should work.
The United States stops went off without a hitch. I emptied out a lot of precious metals in the mints and the bullion depository. The Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan was a pain in the neck and London was almost as bad. I had forgotten to take into consideration that each of those cities is extremely built up. There are drainage tunnels, subways, utilities, and for all I know mole men tunnels that were so annoying to avoid I almost gave up. It took me an extra two days in both Manhattan and London to empty the vaults. Not because of difficulty of alarms or anything but just for the convoluted system of access tunnels I had to follow in order to get close enough to finish the job. It was like a horrible maze.
Africa was different. Planning out what to do is easy. Accomplishing my goals was very difficult. Once again, it was not security or man-made problem, but rather a cultural, linguistic, and I hate to say it but a skin tone problem. First off I did not consider how difficult it would be to get some alone time without people noticing. In the U.S. and U.K. I was just another pasty white guy walking around and people ignored me. In Africa I was the only pasty white guy walking around and was a source of amusement for the locals. All of the local kids would follow the weird white guy around as I tried to find someplace I could start the beginning of my tunnel. I finally had to sneak out of my hotel late at night in a hoodie and pray I did not get mugged until I found an alleyway with no one in it. Once I made it underground it was an even easier time than in the U.S. to access the metal and gems that I needed.
I may be a thief, but I did have a conscious. In every country where I accessed mines and not vaults I made sure to send some gems and metals closer to the surface of where the mines were operating. Since I knew that in about a year these mines might shut down entirely I decided that the last year of mining should be especially beneficial to them. Hopefully that will ease my conscious a little by helping out the locals.
I also over tipped and gave out money where ever I traveled. This I hoped left a great impression with the locals and would help my recruitment efforts. Whenever I was given excellent service or someone helped me out I left a business card and $100 with a message to call and see if there was a position in my new company that they would like to apply for. Moving costs are covered, families are welcome, we will teach you English.
Asia was fun, Australia was a blast. I probably spent more time in Australia than I should have, but I had always wanted to visit and this might be my last chance. So I went on outback tours and purchased significant land holdings in Australia. I set up a management company and built up some quick underground bunkers that my Australian employers could use. I left a detailed set of instructions sealed in the company with the instruction to open it the morning of the summer solstice. I would have liked to warn them ahead of time but I figured they would just think I was crazy. This way even if they thought I was crazy the world would change soon after and validate my plans and preparations. I might be able to save more people this way.
My favorite place on the world wide stealing trip was South America. I first arrived in Brazil as a tourist for a week of fun and sun before I planned on going up to Colombia and its emerald mines. Brazil was an amazing mixture of culture, cute girls, history, fantastic looking women, wonderful beaches and have I mentioned how pretty the ladies are. I probably handed out my business card a little more than I should have but I have very little defense against beautiful women who flirt with me.
The last stop on the grand world tour was Colombia. Now I have met several people from Colombia and even more who have visited the country. I knew it was nothing like what they show in movies with drug dealers and cocaine lords everywhere, but I was unprepared for the sheer beauty and wonderful attitude of its people. Everywhere I went people were universally kind and treated me well. The lovely ladies flirted with me, it may be because of my nationality, it may have been because I can actually speak enough Spanish that they feel I am trying more than other tourists. Whatever the reason I decided that the majority of my staff if I could should be from Colombia.
To me it was simple, if they treated me this well and had such positive attitudes now, then when the world ended and I kept them safe the loyalty they should demonstrate at that time should be amazing. It did not hurt that I love their accents and that the girls are gorgeous. I think I may have been single a little too long. I hope that this does not come back and haunt me later. I have arranged for several coastal sections of land to be bought in my companys name. This should allow my employees access to a boat I will send for them to leave the country and emigrate to America right before the change over.
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A NOTE FROM TENQUI
What can I say. I love the latin ladies. I know that this chapter came out a little bit of a mess, but I hope in future edits to make it less old man lookin at pretty girls creepy and more world building and culture reference.
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A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Great Game text and Stats are now in tables and should be easy to read.
Chapter 11: Prepping for the change over
I am a genius and one luck guy. My plan worked better than I expected. I visited 5 continents, 35 countries, and have brought back an amazing amount of wealth for my new kingdom. I also made some great contacts and invited a few people to join me at the Resort for its grand opening. I am set monetary wise for the rest of my life and my kingdom probably has enough wealth to survive for dozens if not hundreds of years. As a bonus I also picked up three more titles and 6 more levels. The titles were unexpected but a great bonus. I really think I am starting to turn into an OP character. However, that is a good thing. The stronger I am the easier it will be to protect those around me.
When I finally arrive back in North Carolina I will inspect the construction efforts that have been going on while I have been traveling and start ordering consumables. I will also need to start enchanting items and creating a magic based technology platform for after the Great Game start. After my world-wide trip this is where I stand: Stats
Name: Mark Anderson
Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1,
Master Thief +1, World Traveler +1, Wealthy +1
Level: 18 - 23% Unspent Attribute Points: 3
Strength: 30 HP: 300
Intelligence: 55 +20%MP MP: 1320
Wisdom: 55 +20% MP/Regen HP/Regen: 33% per 15 min.
Agility: 30 MP/Regen: 66% per 15 min.
Constitution: 30 +10% HP/Regen Luck: 40
Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire 100%
Water 100% Air 100%
I have finally figured out all my stat bonuses except for luck. I assume luck will come into play for drops once monsters are introduced to the world. I am keeping it high because being lucky is never a bad thing.
An average adult has 10 points across the board in all stats.
If you double the stats you double their abilities. For instance a person with 15 strength is 1.5 times stronger than a normal person. However, after you double your attributes it keeps on being double. What I mean is that 20 strength is 2 times stronger than a regular person, but to be 3 times as strong you have to raise your strength to 40.
You get a 10 percent bonus for every 25 points in Intelligence, Wisdom, and Constitution.
You get 5 points to distribute after each level up into the six different stats.
The titles each provide extra points in all 6 stats dependent on their worth.
Each +1 on a title is equivalent to a free level and just a little bit more. This means I have 9-10 levels worth of free stat points that others will not. That is a huge advantage. Each title is awarded after fulfilling unique conditions, I believe that some are repeatable and others will not be. This means that I need to grab or earn as many titles as possible before others get the free bonus points.
Invitations for the grand opening of my eco-tourism resort have started going out and I am already starting to get some RSVPs. I have told my family and friends that I am hosting an extended family reunion and summer solstice grand opening part at my new resort. All expenses paid so they do not have to worry about anything. They have been fed the line that they will be testers of all of the resorts amenities before I open it up to the general public so I can work out any problems. All of the people invited someone I have met and interacted with or are friends of friends. I hope this will increase the number of people that accept the invitations.
Everything is going smoothly. There is just one more month until the Great Game change over. Over 80% of the people who received invitations have made reservations. All of the facilities have been finished and I have even expanded everything. I am about 75% done with converting my entire set of properties to magic power. The going green movement is a great cover for this. I have installed solar panels everywhere and have just not bothered to mention that they are not hooked up and instead I am powering everything on magic gems.
Transportation was giving me one of the biggest problems. I have prepared numerous low tech alternatives, horses, carriages, etc., but knowing that I can use magic power to run technology has made me want more. I have finally fixed that issue. My kingdom will run on a combination of magic/electric vehicles and steam power. Most chemical reactions will continue to work on a small scale but complex machinery using them will be out. I have read enough books to know that while you can still use oil to burn things and set stuff on fire, using it to power technology never works.
The help screen even told me that electrical storage in normal batteries will no longer work. Without batteries a lot of technology is going to fail. Batteries are in everything in todays society. This was the first thing I worked on. With enchanting I am able to store lightning/electricity inside gems and have them work as a battery. Same basic concept, I just had to apply a magical solution to the problem. I am changing batteries out all over my kingdom and anyone who notices or asks is just told it is a new proprietary technology that is being tested out to usher in a new green revolution. Once they hear that they just ignore it.
This means that my kingdom will be one of the few after the Great Game change over where things like lights and vehicles will still work. This alone will attract people to join my kingdom. This will be both good and bad. Good because it will let us expand, but bad because it will make us a target. I have even prepared a huge array of the largest diamonds and topaz I have to serve as a central power source for the entire kingdom.
I plan on creating smaller but similar arrays around the kingdom as needed for expansion. The current array could probably power 20,000 homes in todays society. It took a week to set up underground. It took me almost another week just to charge it with mana. Now it is self-sustaining and I do not have to worry about it. If we ever start to overdraw its power we can recharge it manually or just create new arrays and hook them into the main array. However, with time constraints I just made the single large array so I could work on and finish some of the other projects. Once the changeover happens I should have other that can help me with the magic and construction, but as for right now it is just me and I have limited time.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
I realize that there may be some mistakes in the weapons development for logic. Let's face it I am not a gunsmith. I did the best I could. Work with me on this people and any glaring mistakes just think "MAGIC".
Chapter 12: Magic Weapons
What I am having the most trouble with is actually creating the magic weapons I know we will need. I can enchant swords, blades, and other hand weapons quite easily. As such I have a wide and interesting collection for my own use and to hand out to subordinates when necessary. I have covered everything from fire to ice and lightning, I even have made shields with defense bonuses from earth magic. What I want most is a projectile weapon. Dont get me wrong I have both bows and crossbows enchanted along with their arrows and bolts. However projectile weapons like guns are surprisingly hard to enchant.
The enchantments themselves are not hard, its just that there are a lot more fiddly bits and small things inside modern guns than most people expect. Smaller things are much harder to enchant than larger things. I not only have to enchant small fiddly bits I have to chain together enchantments if I want to make them strong enough to do any good. Modifying existing weapons seems to be almost impossible, at least with my level of understanding. I am sure that in the future if gunsmiths and other specialists survive and become enchanters they might be able to do better than me, however I do not have the luxury of waiting for what might happen.
It looks like I will have to create a simplified version of a projectile weapon without all of todays technology for me to be able to get something to work. Along those lines I have two different concepts I am currently working on. The first is a rail gun concept that is powered by both lightning and earth magic and the second is a simple air rifle. They are both simplistic and large enough that I can engrave whatever enchantments on them that I like. In my limited tests the rail gun is more impressive but larger, heavier and harder to manufacture. It will most likely end up being used for fixed gun emplacements where I can scale up size and not worry about weight as much.
The air pressure gun works well and only has a few bugs left to work out. I have it done in pistol, rifle and shotgun configuration. The rifle is semi-automatic, gravity fed, and looks like a paintball gun but shoots solid ball bearings of a smaller size. This allows for a surprisingly high rate of fire. I also have a smaller machine pistol size air gun, and a larger bolt action sniper rifle version. The sniper rifle I had to make larger because I needed an ammunition size large enough that I could enchant individual bullets/ammunition. The ammunition is still ball bearings just of a much larger size.
I have gotten the air guns to shoot around 4,000 feet per second which is equivalent to a large hunting rifle shooting a regular bullet. I believe that I can get the fps even higher. The problem is accuracy and ammunition. Current ammunition is going to be worthless because of the non-functioning primer and gunpowder after the changeover. Converting existing ammunition would just be a waste of time and resources. Instead I am using ball bearings which are easy to stockpile, and even easier to create with simple molds and regular fire and metals. Using magic just makes everything easier.
I have decided to use inch in diameter ball bearings for pistol rounds, 1 inch for rifle rounds and a massive 3 inches in diameter for sniper rounds. Fixed placement rounds will probably be in the 5-6 inch in diameter range. I discovered after much testing that three inches is about as small as I can enchant and have the spell do anything useful.
The smaller rounds are just air pressure spells and iron sight accuracy. About 25 -50 meters for pistols and 100-150 meters for the rifles. The larger 3 inch round can be imbued with accuracy enchantments or even elemental enchantments. I have successfully tested these out to around 500 meters. I think an expert and some design tweaks could push this distance to almost a kilometer. These distances are not as far as conventional modern weapons but are easier to learn to use and faster than bows and arrows.
My final gun development is the shotgun. It is both practical and lets face it cool. Every end of the world story that has guns has shotguns in it somewhere. They just look great and are easy to maintain. A simple double barrel shotgun is the only modern firearm I can enchant easily. I can produce about 25 shotguns a day along with 100 modified rounds for each of them. It will be the go to weapon early in the changeover.
The resort I built is called Appalachia Kingdom. Come enjoy your stay and be treated like royalty. With this theme I have been able to construct moats, huge castle walls, towers and outposts that otherwise might have had people questioning my sanity. I have just about completed every prep step I can think of and just need to start stockpiling everything I can think of. I have about 1 month left until the solstice and the beginning of the Great Game for everyone else. I suddenly see an unexpected blue game screen in front of me:
Phase 2 will begin in one lunar month. World map is now activated. Skill, attribute, and ability limiters removed. Beginner dungeons now activated. Limited Great Game store access is granted to all beta test users.
Alright I was not expecting this. I thought I was almost prepared. Looking harder at the message I think that this is all positive for me. First off I did not know there were limits placed on everything. Once I got everything to a certain level I switched to working on something else. I am more a jack of all trades. I felt that this was the best way to protect everyone until we get specialist in different areas trained up.
I need to check with the help menu on some of these things but access to the store should let me stock up on magic items like HP and MP recovery potions and other assorted bits and bobs that I would have had to make myself before the changeover. This will free up a lot of my time. However, the piece of the message I am most interested in is the beginner dungeons. I need to see just what is in store for my family and friends after the change and a dungeon could provide essential information.
World Map:
The following is a world map tutorial provided to all game users the first time world map is activated. World map will show any unknown or unexplored Great Game recognized village or higher population concentration within a 10 kilometer range. World map will display any unknown or unexplored Great Game stores and official local outlets within 5 kilometers. World map will show all dungeons of appropriate levels (player level + 10 levels or below) within 100 kilometers. There are secret dungeons that are not displayed and abilities that can hide things from world map users. World map can be expanded and refined with the explorer and cartographer skills. All locations that have been explored personally by the user are accessible at any time from the world map.
There seems to be three blinking red dots on a transparent screen which I assume is the world map. It seems to be a very basic interface, but it is easy to understand. If I want more information or detail I am going to have to get the explorer and/or cartographer skills or titles. These dots must be dungeons. Without more information I am just going to have to drive until I get close and then search for an entrance.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
A long chapter (for me) to end the day with. More tomorrow.
Chapter 13: Dungeons Can Be Fun
I spent the last 2 days getting ready for my first ever dungeon crawl. I have stocked my inventory with just about everything I can think of. I have 3 dozen each of HP and MP recovery potions bought from the Great Game store and a traveling alchemical kit to sample things. Empty vials and jars, rope, rations for 2 weeks and a variety of other mundane things. I also have some magic jewelry and accessories to boost my stats, some enchanted clothes instead of armor, and hand weapons and shooting weapons of all sorts to try out.
I am going to use these beginner dungeons for some quick xp and to test my magic weapons against actual Great Game creatures. The 1st dungeon I am going to travel to looks to be slightly north and east of my castle. After a little more than an hour of driving I realize that I am very close to the town of Asheville, North Carolina. If a dungeon opened up near people you think that it would have made the news. Maybe there is something else going on, or the Great Game is hiding things again. I expected to be led into the mountains and needing to hike to some cave entrance. This is way outside my expectations. I guess I read to many role playing books and they have colored my expectations.
Strange, the blinking red dot has led me to Biltmore Estates. If the dungeon is located at a such a prominent tourist attraction how come no one has said or reported anything? Is it some sort of government cover up? Well only one way to find out. I load anything suspicious, like my weapons, into my inventory where no one else will see them and put on a pair of serviceable and functional camo fatigues and a backpack that has been enchanted with extra storage capacity. Lets go see what this whole dungeon thing is about.
After I buy a ticket at the guest services area I approach the main house and am surprised when a blue screen pops up in front of me. I look around quickly to see if anyone else notices, but it looks like it is just visible to me. I concentrate on the screen and read:
Biltmore Estates is a Level 20 instanced dungeon, make sure you and your party are in contact with each other after reading this message or you will be transported to different instances of the dungeon. You will teleport in 30 seconds.
OK, this actually makes a little more sense. I guess an instance dungeon is usable by different parties at the same time. Since I am the only beta tester that passed no other person is being transported into the dungeons and are just visiting the normal Biltmore Estates.
After the 30 second countdown I see sort of a heat shimmer and the other people around me disappear. After which another screen pops up:
For being the first to enter Biltmore Estates Dungeon you will be rewarded with double xp for the first 48 hours. If the dungeon is finished within the bonus time frame unique rewards will be given to the party.
As I look at the manor in front of me I notice a distinct difference between the real world and the dungeon Biltmore Estates. The dungeon estates looks much more run down and generally exudes a creepy feeling. Well they certainly got the ambiance of a dungeon correct. This place has horror movie written all over it. Oh well lets see what we have. As I approach the front of the manor another blue screen pops up:
Biltmore Estates Dungeon is divided into 3 parts. The order you complete them will influence the rest of the dungeon.
1. Save the villagers
2. Stop the Zombie Plague
3. Defeat the Lich
Teleportation is disabled inside the dungeon.
Interesting it seems that there may be some strategy involved. The simple strategy seems to be to just go in order 1, 2, 3. However, I always like to do things differently. I think the most efficient way to do this will actually be to go in the order of task 2, then task 3, and then finish with task 1. I will stop the zombies before the numbers increase, then take on the main boss, the Lich, leaving the villager rescue last. This may backfire on me but I think it will work. If the villagers have survived this long hopefully they can survive a little bit longer. I think it would be a mistake to let the zombies and Lich gather strength while I save the villagers. I also might have to then protect the villagers from all of the other dungeon creatures until the end.
Now I need to figure out where everything is. When in doubt conquer the high ground. Most people would probably go inside the mansion and head up, but that is so predictable. I quickly scan the outside of the manor. There we are, that side has windows all the way up to the roof with relatively wide ledges. I can simply climb right up to the roof. I would not have been even able to think about doing this a year ago. With my new Great Game earned levels and strength it should be easy to use those windows as a make shift ladder to the top. I can do some basic reconnaissance while looking through the windows and then scan the entire are from the roof.
The climb was easier than I expected. I could not see much through the windows though, it might be a function of the dungeon. Wandering around the roof I am able to see a large cemetery with shambling figures behind the mansion. That was never there before. Find zombie plague check. This dungeon seems to be following standard horror/bad guy movie logic. This means that the villagers should be imprisoned in the basement/dungeon and the Lich will be in either a grand ballroom/throne room or in a laboratory on the upper floor. That means that I can head to the cemetery in the back and deal with the zombies, climb back up to the roof and work my way down the manor until I find and defeat the Lich and eventually end up in the basement to set free the villagers. Easy peasy lemon squeeze.
Alright time to gear up. I probably should have done this before climbing to the roof, but I forgot. I have my magical fatigues on that give some armor bonuses but allow me freedom of movement. These things are fantastic, they have an improved protection ability, self-cleaning and limited repair ability, and to top it all off I gave them a temperature regulation enchantment. Making it a set of 4 was the best I could do, 1 for shoes, 1 for undergarments, 1 for pants, and one enchantment for the shirt. Some people may question why army fatigues, well they are durable, comfortable, have lots of pockets and just plain look cool. I gave them such a variety of enchantments because it seems that enchantments do not stack in the Great Game. In other words if I have a ring of protection +2 and boots of protection +3 I do not get protection +5 I just get the highest value and the other one is wasted. So variety is the name of the game when enchanting. clothing, armor and accessories.
Strangely enough you can stack weapon enchantments. I do not know why, probably some strange game logic I just won't understand. Next is my accessories, I have different sets for different situations. Through experimentation I have found out that I can have one necklace, 4 rings, 1 head covering, and one outer covering. The outer covering can be a cloak, a jacket, or any other similar type thing. For this dungeon I think I will go with 1 HP regen boosting ring, 1 MP regen boosting ring, 1 agility boosting ring, 1 strength boosting ring, a disease resisting necklace, a duster jacket of camouflage and finally a magic resisting boonie cap. These choices should cover most situations I will run into in this dungeon.
All right sooner started, sooner done. First I think I will try out my new sniper rifle. I want to try out each of the special ammunitions I have created along with a normal projectile. I think I will try out the lightning bullet first. I carefully aim for the head of one of the zombies wandering around in the cemetery and squeeze the trigger. The head just disintegrated and the zombie flopped down on the ground. It looks like the there is a small 1-2 foot crater in the dirt behind it. Ok, note to self, special ammunition is overkill for smaller non armored targets. The penetration was fantastic, but I did not get to see lightning affect the zombie because it just went through the target so fast.
What a waste of an enchantment. Oh well at least it was only one. I think I will postpone the trial run of the other special ammunition until I find a more suitable target. The sound of the bullet hitting the ground has started to attract more zombies near the crater that was formed. I put away the sniper rifle into my inventory and bring out my newest version of the rifle the MA 12. Why is it called the MA 12? Well, that would be rifle designation Mark Anderson version 12. Some people are probably curious about what happened to versions 1-11, please do not ask, several of them were extremely painful and embarrassing failures.
I carefully line up a shot on another zombie. I have to be careful, unlike my sniper rifle which I had equipped with a scope, the MA 12 is iron sights only. I fire my first shot and check to see what the damage was. I see an arm slowly pinwheel through the air and then hit the ground. Huh, just like in the movies, it was just not in slow motion. I did not know that could happen in real life. Well an arm is not lethal to a zombie but at least I know the MA 12 is a success. I just need to work on my personal aim a bit.
I want to finish this as quickly as possible so I should move closer to make aiming easier. This way I should eliminate the zombies and their threat quicker. I climb down the back of Biltmore and cautiously make my way over to a garden shed just outside of the cemetery. Using the slight height advantage should allow me to see farther and also keep me relatively safe from the slow shambling zombies.
After I set up a small shooters nest on top of the shed I get to work. This is becoming monotonous. Is there no end to these things? I have been up here for over an hour and while there are less zombies now I still am getting new zombies from deep in the cemetery wandering into my shooting zone. Wait a minute. New zombies? Maybe there is something deeper in the graveyard that keeps spawning these things.
It seems I am going to have to do this the hard way. I clear up my immediate area and pack everything up. I jump down from the shed and pull out my shotgun, Betsy and make sure that she is easily available on her quick sling. I then take out a rather large Warhammer that I have nicknamed the Persuader. Now I realize that some out there may wonder about or question my selection of weapons. Experience and movies have taught me many things that make this the best combination.
First with a shotgun all I have to do is be close. My aim does not have to be perfect in order to do a massive amount of damage. Second it is easier to crush a skull with my enhanced strength than to cut a head off. I learned this through T.V. and I actually tested it out on some pigs and their carcasses during training. Why a pig? I needed to train myself not to hesitate or get sick at the sight of blood. I have read to many books and seen to many movies where some character kills something for the first time and is then overwhelmed or killed when they get sick to their stomach. Pigs are pretty good representatives of humans for tissue layers, weight, and have similar anatomy. They are the best I could do because I am not a sociopath and was not going to train on humans.
Feeling like I was prepared for anything I set out. Man this is boring. I do not know if I am overpowered, but this just seems too easy. I know theme music, thats what I need to make this better. Man there goes my brain wandering off again, although it would be great to have some theme music, Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Mark Man. Stop it brain and focus. What is that up ahead? It looks like a campfire.
I decide that discretion is the better part of valor and sneak closer instead of just blasting my way in like an 80s action hero. As I sneak closer I see that there appears to be a, Witch Doctor, Shaman, Some Guy with feathers on his head, chanting near the fire. Lets call him Hank. As I watch Hank chant I see 3 new zombies start to claw their way up out of the ground in front of him. So Hank is the source of the new zombies. He must be like a mini boss in a game.
Alright, time to get psyched. I can do this. I carefully and quietly put my shotgun back into my inventory and switch it out for my sniper rifle with a fire enchanted bullet. I quickly but carefully line up my shot, breathe out, and squeeze the trigger.
Congratulations on finishing part 2 of the Biltmore Estates Dungeon, stop the zombie plague. The dungeon has been modified. All experience will be tallied and administered after exiting the dungeon.
That was terribly anti-climactic. One shot one kill. I should be ecstatic, but I am actually kind of nervous. Should it be this easy? The experience from kills is not awarded until the end of the dungeon so I thought I would struggle more being a level 18 character in a level 20 dungeon. Could I be that much of an OP character? Perhaps it is my weapons, maybe they are over leveled for this dungeon.
I need to figure this out so I can safely prepare my friends and family. This is so strange. I guess another marathon round of ask the help screen will occur when I get out of this dungeon. Lets loot everything first and then move on to the next stage. Nothing spectacular in the loot, a couple gems and a magic weapon that is worse than what I have. That is an indicator that I may actually have over powered equipment for this dungeon. Good to know.
Oh well, I need to focus on right now. I can figure out the other stuff later. Next I think I will try and defeat the Lich. That was task #3, and then go back and rescue the villagers. So according to video game logic which has served me well so far, the end boss or Lich should be on an upper floor of the mansion. There are not throne rooms in the Biltmore Estates, but there are a couple of rooms that are very large and ostentatious. The grand dining room, it is large and from what I remember when I took the tour years ago it could easily be fancy enough to double as a throne room.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Alright lets keep the fun train rolling. Three more chapters for today.
Chapter 14: Meeting the Lich
I climb back up the outside of the manor to the roof. I want to work from the top down. That may be opposite of regular logic, but I do not want to leave anything behind me and I think it will give me a slight advantage. I need to remember to be careful and not to get cocky. That is how people die in the stories and movies. The zombie part I already cleared may have been easy, but it does not mean that the rest of this dungeon will be.
I take the ladder down from the roof access I pried open and arrive in what must have been a storage room. Ok lets focus and prepare. Im inside and fighting the undead so lets stay with a shotgun and a blunt weapon. Betsy and the Persuader it is. As I ready my weapons I try and think of any of my magic that might be helpful. Magic, thats what I forgot to test during the first part. I became the worlds only magic using Quadelementalist and I completely forgot to use any magic on the first part of the dungeon.
To be fair I have never been in a dungeon and magic is pretty new to me, but that was rather dumb. On the other hand, if the first part was that easy when I did not even use any of my magic maybe I really am turning into an OP character. The first magic that comes to mind that would be useful is the fire element, because in stories undead are always weak to either holy/light magic or fire magic. Seeing as how I do not even know if holy/light magic is real I think I will stick with fire. However, I can only use fire in emergencies. This is real life and if I just shoot fire balls and such around I am going to set stuff on fire and burn this place down around me.
Wait a second, do I need to be careful of that? What if set Biltmore Estates on fire and just let it burn down and kill everything inside? Would that count as a win? I congratulate myself for some excellent outside the box thinking, but remember that I have not rescued the villagers yet so burning down the manor may not be the best of ideas. However, if you can do an instance dungeon more than once then I might rescue the villagers, lead them outside and then set the whole dang place on fire. Something to remember for the future, just because in the books they leave dungeons intact does not mean I have too.
Ok other magic that I can use since fire is out except for emergencies. Well I do have bullet spells of all types of elements. I have a water bullet, more useful for a water fight, ice bullet, which is quite deadly, rock bullet, also deadly, and a wind bullet which just sort of pushes things back. That settles it. When I get back I need to develop my spells some more. I know of all of these great spells in books and I need to try and develop them soon. Where is my wind blade, my chain lightning, etc. I have been so focused on developing traditional weapons that I have ignored straight magic attacks which should be devastating and completely separate.
Ok here I go, I will just have to test out the magic I have as I go along. I will clear each of the rooms I come to on the way to the Grand Ballroom so nothing can surprise me from behind in the boss fight. After several rooms full of undead later I have some positive and negative results to pass onto others. First with zombies per usual as long as you destroy the head they die. With my limited skills this is ice and rock bullets. Second ghosts and wraiths CAN hurt you and a lot, and they only can be hit by magic or magic weapons. My shotgun was useless in the encounter. The shotgun works based on magic but the pellets coming out were not enchanted so they just went straight through those transparent suckers. That was not a fun fight.
Finally skeletons are tricky. Most skeletons are kind of wusses and pushovers. Low level fodder easy to destroy with magic or a weapon, however when they wear armor they are higher level and harder to kill. Red glowing eyes mean normal skeleton, blue glowing eyes means skeleton mage and kill it fast and first. I was right about the fire magic being a safety problem in real life. Most of a room was set on fire from a fire using skeleton mage before I figured out the blue eyes and kill it first thing. I had to waste half an hour after the fight using my limited water bullet spells to put the dang thing out. I mean I really felt it could have burned the whole place down. No self-preservation from those skeleton mages.
The best news is I have finally reached the outside of the Grand Ballroom. I seriously underestimated the sheer number of rooms I would have to check on the way, but I am glad I did because of 75% of those rooms held undead and loot. This whole thing has taken me hours. If the Lich is in here after I beat it I am going to have to make a temporary camp just to rejuvenate myself. I dont want to camp right now without dealing with the Lich first.
I open the door to the Grand Ballroom and quickly dart to side and hide behind a pillar. As I peek out to survey the situation I see a large skeleton with a crown on his head sitting on a large chair/throne thing. Bingo I was right, that has to be the Lich. It is holding a scepter with a large ruby on top of it and it definitely has glowing blue eyes so it is a spell caster. This all seems pretty clich, but I have been working off my game knowledge the entire time and seems to be helpful so I should probably stop complaining.
Alright, quick mental review of what I know about Lichs before I attack. They are a powerful undead sorcerer and use the same type of magic in death as they did in life. Usually can summon hordes of undead and minions to act as shields and to help attack. Not very physically strong, but are powerful ranged magicians. I feel like I am forgetting something important about them though. Oh well, it will come to me if needed, lets think strategy. Damage it early from a distance and then rush it and swinging so it cannot chant or summon reinforcements.
Since I dont have life or holy magic I think I will sneak as close to it as I can and use a magma bullet in the sniper rifle and then rush and smash with the Warhammer. That seems to be a pretty solid and fool proof plan. I have been wanting to try out the magma bullet. It is one of my only magic combination experiments that has worked. It has both earth and fire magic enchanted on it so when it hits something Lava spews out and covers it on the outside if hard enough or on the inside if it penetrates. That was a rather fun test day on the shooting range. It is also what I call a variable bullet. That means it gets more devastating the more mana I put into it before I shoot it.
I sneak off to the left and start to set up my first shot from behind a side table. Before I can pump mana into the bullet the Lich turns its head and looks straight at me. I can sense your life force little one, there is no use in hiding. Ok this was not part of the plan. Since I no longer have the element of surprise, lets try overwhelming might. I quickly dump in the maximum amount of mana this little bullet can hold. About 250 mana that is about 10 times the amount of a regular fireball. I line up the shot and fire it before anything else unexpected happens.
Have you ever had that moment when a small tear comes to your eye because what you are watching is just so damn awesome? I am having one of those moments right now. Note to self, 250 mana seems to be overkill. Not only is there nothing left of the Lich, throne, or much or the area surrounding it, but a little miniature mushroom cloud has formed over the area where they used to be. Thank you "Great Game", that little extra touch made it fantastic.
I do a little victory dance before I start casting my limited water spells as fast as I can so I do not burn down the rest of the Manor. Now it is time to search for loot my favorite part. As I start getting closer to where any remains might be I start getting the feeling that I missed something. Quick review, snuck in, Lich saw me, shot Lich, Lich died, Great Game notice that this part of the dungeon was complete, wait a second there was no notice. That means the Lich is not dead yet. Crap how could anything survive that.
Chapter 15: Death of the Lich
I quickly scan the area. How on earth is this even freaking possible? I saw the beautiful mushroom cloud of death. I mean the Lichs body was vaporized. The only way he could survive is if he had a clone or a DANGIT. A phylactery, I forgot that Liches store their soul in a phylactery. Stupid undead magic user, hiding his stupid soul, now I have to go and find it. Where do Lichs usually store their souls in the books? Depending on the author it is either in a gem or some vase type container. Ok, time to start breaking things. HULK SMASH! Man I have always wanted to say that and then start breaking stuff.
Wow this is surprisingly fun. I think I like destruction, now if only I could find, well hello there my pretty. Whats a nice scepter like you doing in a place like this? Wait a second, this was the scepter that the Lich was holding. It must have rolled over here after that beautiful big boom. What is that twinkle, why it comes from the ruby at the end of the scepter? Wouldnt that make a dandy phylactery for a lich? If I am right I move on to the next challenge, if I am wrong I am only out a ruby. Listen to me now. Only out a ruby. A year ago I would have done just about anything to get my hands on a ruby like that to sell it for some cash. How things change.
One solid whack from the old Warhammer and I am now a proud owner of cracked ruby that seems to be leaking tar. Oh that disgusting, lets just burn that grossness away. As soon as the black substance was burned I received that notice I was waiting for.
Congratulations on finishing part 3 of the Biltmore Estates Dungeon, defeat the Lich. The dungeon has been modified. All experience will be tallied and administered after exiting the dungeon.
It said that last time too, the dungeon has been modified. I hope it is just a level modification or perhaps more of a behavioral one for the NPCs. Since I did the dungeon out of order, I think a quick rest is in order then back to work. I still need to clear the rooms all the way down to the basement and look for the villagers. I think I will just continue on until I find a nice little room I can barricade myself into for a few hours of rest and recuperation.
A wonderful 6 hours of down time I am ready to go. Another marathon session of clearing rooms one by one until I reach the basement, about 4 hours worth, and I finally reach the set of stairs that lead down into the bowels of Biltmore. Huh, bowels of Biltmore thats kind of fun to say. Bowels of Biltmore, Biltmores bowels, the beautiful bombastic benevolent bowels of Biltmore. Stop it brain. Man I have to wonder about myself sometimes. Is this random crap in my head a coping mechanism or is it a sign of a problem I need to get medically checked out for. I cant go to a psychiatrist, they would lock me up for sure if I told them my story right now. I guess I should schedule a full medical check-up before we lose technology, just to be on the safe side. Enough wandering thoughts and future planning, lets finish this dungeon.
As I open the door I can hear voices in the distance. The stairs winding down are lit poorly with torches. I use the flickering light and shadows to work myself closer. I am curious as to the dialogue that might be going on and who it might be between. The only thing I have heard speak with intelligence in this whole dungeon was the chanting Witch Doctor guy and the Lich. I wonder who or what is talking now.
I get close enough to start hearing snippets of the conversation. Let us go, How could you do this to us, SHUT UP. Interesting it seems to be an interaction between the captive villagers and the jailer. I carefully look around the last curve of the stairwell to scope out the scene.
In front of me I see a sight that could be taken straight from a movie plot or video game. A fat shirtless man, with a whip, is walking the aisle between cells packed full of people. Young, old, children, it looks like someone just grabbed an entire village and stuffed them into the prison cells. Seeing as the villagers are relatively safe at the moment, I think I will just hide and continue to watch and listen for a time to see what I can learn. I hope that any talking I might hear will give me some more insight into the overall Great Game or dungeon situation.
William one of the prisoners spoke. How could you betray us like this?
A rough gravelly voice answered, Listen old man, you all had the same screen and the same choice as me. I saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to break free of my position in the Great Game. I am no longer going to have to just accept my role in life. Working for the Lich is a chance at power and if that means some or all of you have to suffer, so be it.
You know that you will never get away with this.
Who do you think is going to stop me? My contract with the Lich is over as soon as the game goes live on the backwater planet. At that point in time I can just join the regular population with a significant boost to my stats.
Alright if that clich line was not a flag for me to do something, then all of my game playing, book reading, and movie watching was for nothing. I pull out my pistol and step around the corner. I see the eyes of some of the prisoners widen when they realize I am not the Lich or one of his minions. Quick Mark this is your chance, say something cool. Traitors dont deserve to live. Nailed it.
The jailer William spins around at the sound of my voice and has the most dumbfounded expression on his face. Awesome, who could ask for a better entrance and one liner? Before William can even speak I put two bullets into his chest and watch him fall. I approach cautiously and put another bullet into his head just to be sure. My momma didnt raise no fool, always double tap and make sure the bad guy stays down.
Congratulations on finishing the Biltmore Estates Dungeon. Calculating rewards. As the first person on Earth to finish a dungeon you are granted the title, Dungeon Explorer +3, as you cleared the dungeon faster than any other party you are granted the title, Unstoppable +2, because you cleared the dungeon alone you are granted the title, Army of One +1, due to causing more than 100 gold coins of damage to buildings in a dungeon you are granted the title of, Arsonist +1. As a ruler of your own domain you have fulfilled the unique hidden conditions of Biltmore Estates Dungeon. You have the choice of adding Hidden Valley Village to your Kingdom of Appalachia. Do you wish to add this village to your kingdom? Yes/No."
Ok this is a lot to take in. First before I decide on the village lets see if I can get some answers out of the villagers. Alright who is in charge here?
I am my lord my name is Edward, I am the head of Hidden Valley Village.
Ok Edward, here is the deal, I just received a notice from the Great Game that I could add Hidden Valley Village to my kingdom. First off would you like to be part of my kingdom, and second who the hell are you people and where did you come from? It is obvious you are real and not NPCs or constructs of the Great Game.
My lord I do not know what an NPC is but our village will pledge loyalty to you. Our village is from the planet Arta, we do not know where we are now but have lived as part of the Great Game for generations.
One last question before I add you to my kingdom, why would you pledge loyalty to me? You know nothing about me, I say perplexed about his reaction.
That is not true my lord. We know that you are strong. In all the stories we know of I have never heard of someone establishing a kingdom before the Great Game started. We know you are fair because you gave us the choice of choosing to join you, he said in a lofty manner.
That seems to be well thought out. I will definitely have some questions for you so let me add you to my kingdom and we can go from there. I selected yes from the menu.
Hidden Valley Village is now a part of the Kingdom of Appalachia. Notice since you were able to expand your kingdom and subjects before any others you have been granted the title, Manifest Destiny +3.
Bonus! This dungeon has more than paid for itself in titles and bonus stats alone. Alright Edward, some questions as we set everyone free, I need to know how you got here and how I can get you back to my kingdom without causing any problems.
Those questions are easy to answer my Lord. The village was given a choice to emigrate to a new game world. The village as a whole discussed and voted to move. The last kingdom we were in did little to protect us and was raising its taxes to the point we were not sure we could survive. Usually emigration means the village and surroundings get transported entirely to the new world. It is an advantage for the village because we know and have lived under the Great Game system. Many villages have prospered greatly after moving. Unfortunately this time one of our own, William, whom you dispatched must have been given a separate choice of betrayal and accepted. While unusual this has happened in the past from what we have heard. It is a way for new worlds to have access to unique dungeons and rewards . From the stories that I have been told our village will appear in your world as soon as you exit the dungeon. We just have to reach it.
Chapter 16: Leaving Biltmore
Edward was the first person I released from the cells. He then told me all this information as he helped me free the other villagers. This explanation as we freed the other villagers allowed me to form a rough plan. I am assuming that the Great Game or whoever is in charge will alter memories to explain a new village like they have done for everything else. So know I just need to get them to the village. That should be easy enough, a couple of little white lies, some phone calls and money should take care of the transportation.
Alright Edward, here is what we are going to do. Technology in my world still works for another month, so you might see some unusual things. I need you to inform all of the villagers and warn them not to look too surprised. Next, do you all have access to the inventory system?
Yes my lord we all have inventory. It is given to everyone over the age of 8. Your level and class determines how large it is so there is some variety among the villagers.
Excellent, then here is the plan. We are going to take everything that we can fit into our inventories before we leave this dungeon. 20% or 2 out of every 10 items that you grab will be donated to the kingdom. Everything else is yours to keep as compensation for having to go through this ordeal.
Looking completely bewildered Edward asked, My lord, are you sure?
What, am I asking for too much?
No my lord you are very generous. Never would I have expected this much consideration.
Edward you need to understand something about me. First off I have more than I need, I will only take a minimum because I feel that it is only fair that you help provide funding for defense and protection in the kingdom. I will set taxes low, but I expect everyone in my kingdom to help each other out so we can grow stronger and stay safe. I will only adjust these policies under special circumstances. Second, I really do not like to have a lot of people around, so as long as nothing major happens do not expect to see me a lot. I will be doing my own thing most of the time leaving you in charge of your village. Now stop crying and thanking me and lets loot this place.
The next few hours were interesting to say the least. These villagers looted that dungeon like professionals. Everything from chairs, to beds, drapes, linens, candle sticks and vases made it into their inventories. I even saw one guy taking the already cut firewood from next to a fire place. I even asked the guy what he was doing. He just looked at me and said, I have inventory space my lord and every piece I get here is one that I do not have to cut myself later. This was a man after my own heart. The villagers picked that place clean. I led them all to the entrance and addressed them one more time.
Ok people here it is. When we step outside we should exit the dungeon. There might be other people around. They may talk, act, and dress differently than you do. So remember the story I gave you. You are reenactors waiting for you tour bus. I will arrange transportation and we will get you settled back in your village as soon as possible.
As soon as I opened the door I was greeted with notifications and weird looks from other tourists.
For leading an entire village in looting a dungeon you are granted the title, Not Nailed Down +1, For completely wiping out all denizens of the dungeon you are granted the title, Scourge of the Undead +1, for completing the dungeon in a unique order you are granted the title, Thinks Outside the Box +1. Calculating all experience and monetary rewards, you gain 5 levels, 1093 gold, 463 silver. You are also granted 3 common magic items, 2 uncommon magic items, 1 rare item, and 1 unique item or skill from the Great Game store for defeating a dungeon boss 5 levels or higher than you with only one hit.
This dungeon is the gift that just keeps on giving. I love it. I start making some calls to tour bus companies as soon as get the villagers collected all off to one side. I feed them a line about mechanical troubles with another bus service and tell them I will pay them a premium to get 6 tour buses to transport just under 200 villagers back to their village.
The village by the way appeared on my world map about 5 miles away from my castle, nestled in a little valley in the Pisgah National Forest. The village and what looks like 400 to 800 meters of surrounding land is now registering as my property. I am going to have to remember to claim all the land between my castle and the new village as soon as the Great Game starts.
Ok things to do. Settle in the villagers, claim my prizes from the Great Game store, and write a quick dungeon guide to Biltmore for others to use in the future. Also I really need to get to as many dungeons as possible before the changeover. These titles are giving me a huge boost and should help me and mine stay safe. The weapons I designed work wonderfully, but I need to reserve some time to make more before the changeover.
In fact I need to check my status and assign my points. Its been a while since I have leveled up. I have been increasing my skills, but leveling opportunities are harder to get just through skills after level 15. I mean I get a few points every time I reach a new mastery level in a skill. For a while I was learning skills just for the experience. With the dungeons now available I think I should start to specialize soon.
Status:
Name: Mark Anderson
Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1, Master Thief +1,
World Traveler +1, Wealthy +1, Dungeon Explorer +3, Unstoppable +2,
Army of One +1, Arsonist +1, Manifest Destiny +3, Not Nailed Down +1,
Scourge of the Undead +1, Think Outside the Box +1
Level: 23 - 41% Unspent Attribute Points: 28
Strength: 43 HP: 430
Intelligence: 68 +20%MP MP: 1732
Wisdom: 68 +20% MP/Regen HP/Regen: 47% per 15 min.
Agility: 43 MP/Regen: 81% per 15 min.
Constitution: 43 +10% HP/Regen Luck: 53
Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire 100%
Water 100% Air 100%
Wow those titles really make a difference. I gained 23 points in all stats across the board just from my titles. Thats 138 stat points or just over 27 levels worth. Most of the titles seem to be awarded for doing something or discovering something first. With me being the only surviving beta tester this is an amazing opportunity for me. I feel that levels are going to be harder to acquire as your level goes up. This means the more bonuses I have the more powerful I will become compared to other people. I mean in stats alone I should be hitting around level 50 even though I am only a level 23 character.
Some of the titles even seem repeatable. Not for me but for my family and friends to get bonuses as well. Think Outside the Box and Unstoppable for sure seem to be something that multiple people can earn. As long as they defeat a dungeon in a unique way and/or beat the old time record they should win those titles.
Now the question is how I should spend my attribute points. From what I figured out earlier the average person starts at around 10 points in each attribute. Doubling points doubles your abilities. So 20 points is twice the normal human, and doubling again to 40 points is three times a normal human. Basically there is a diminishing return almost forcing people to start to specialize after level 20 or so. If it was not for all of my titles I would only be around twice as strong as the average human instead of 3 times as strong. This means that I need to earn as many titles as possible for the free points. With the 28 unassigned points I still have I think I will round everything to -5 and take my Intelligence and Wisdom to 75 to get the next bonus. That will leave 6 points left over in case of emergencies or new discoveries. This should bring me to Str-45, Int-75, Wis-75, Agi-45, Con-45, and Luck 55.
This puts me at 3 times the average human in all areas, and close to 4 times the average person in Intelligence and Wisdom. This should act as a surprise to many people both friend and foe. Most will look for a specialization and since I am so well rounded with my titles switching between magic and physical attacks could really surprise people and win a confrontation for me. It also seems to me that some skills are either easier to obtain or can only be obtained in the Great Game situations or dungeons. I picked up marksmanship and leadership in the Biltmore dungeon. I thought if they existed I should already have had them due to my time on the firing range and leading what is now a large corporation. In fact I have not earned any new skills lately until the dungeon, I have only leveled them up. Maybe there is a limit to the number of skills you can have based on your level? I mean I went up five levels in the dungeon and suddenly picked up skills I had been using. Oh well time will tell.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Order of chapters should be fixed.
Chapter 17: Hidden Valley Village
When my new villagers are finally loaded on the buses, I lead the caravan back to my castle and feed them lunch. During this time I go out and find the exact route to the Hidden Valley Village. It would not look good if no one could give the bus drivers directions. We finally arrive at my new village. I see an interesting mix of medieval architecture through pre industrial construction and buildings. None of the bus drivers seem to notice anything weird so the Great Game confusion seems to be working just fine. After I manage to get everybody off the buses and back into their normal housing Village Head Edward takes me on a tour of the village and invites me to stay for a celebration that evening. It is around 2 p.m. so the festivities will begin in a few hours.
I let him know that this sounds great, but in the mean time I am going to wander the local area of my new territory. He smiles and says he understands. I start to wander around and access my kingdom menu. I want to set everything up before the celebration so I can announce it during the festivities. First I set taxes to 5% + a mutual defense pact. I have resources of my own so I do not need that much, but I do have to charge them something. I find some interesting sub menus as I walk along. I can set up war time taxes and immigration policies among other things. Ok press here, confirm there, accept, and finished.
Now I am going to prepare a little surprise, and gift for the village. I have about 4 hours left until the celebration which with my new mana levels should be more than enough. I start enchanting some decent size boulders. I need them to be big enough to hold a decent amount of mana, but small enough for me to move. About 200-250lbs should be about right. I start laughing out loud. I cant believe that I can now easily move such weight around. I pump each stone with around 500 points of mana and set them up in a giant octagon around 500 to 600 meters out from the boundary of the village. Almost to the line of where I can feel my land ends and another land begins. This should be a great surprise for them. I tie all of the stones together into one large enchantment and head back for the celebration.
After a wonderful BBQ of something I was pretty sure was not beef from Earth and songs and dancing I told Edward to gather everyone up. I had a few announcements to make. I welcomed all of them again to the Kingdom of Appalachia and began my spiel. Alright everyone we need to go over a few rules, expectations, and some non-fun things like taxes. I could see them all tense up. First taxes in my kingdom are set at 5% in peaceful times and 10% in times of war. It was hilarious to see their expressions. It was obvious that they expected something much worse.
I continued, This can be in currency or its equivalent in goods the kingdom requests. For safety and defense the Kingdom of Appalachia requires each village, town, or city to hire and maintain 1 guardsmen per 75 people. All citizens ages 16-35 will participate in twice monthly militia drills and be on call to defend their homes when needed. In the event of war each town shall muster a squad of 10% of their current militia age population as a levy for the Kingdoms armies and defense. Anyone who falls in defense of the kingdom will receive 1 years guard wages delivered to their closest relatives. To encourage innovation and good will any citizen who is recognized as contributing greatly to the kingdom in any form will be exempt from taxes for 1 year. A towns tax rate cannot exceed the Kingdoms tax rate. All towns will elect a leader once every 10 years or as necessary. Leaders shall report twice yearly to the king. As a welcome gift from the kingdom and to help with the defense of Hidden Valley Village, I will be sending construction people around to modernize all homes and to build some new structures like barracks and such at no cost to the village. Remember, they do not know about the Great Game yet so keep with the story about being reenactors. As a final gift for your safety I give Hidden Valley Village a new defensive wall. I activated the enchantments I had placed in the stones around the village. Using my stored mana they started growing into a 5 meter tall 1 meter thick octagon shaped wall surrounding the village with two entrances. No gates yet, but that will be taken care of by the craftsman I will send to you. Last but not least, remember my simple motto. Be Good, Be Loyal, or Be Punished.
After much cheering and well wishes I excused myself after promising to visit soon and headed back to my place for some rest. I also wanted a chance to relax and choose my rewards from the Great Game store. Lying in bed later that night I was scrolling through my possible choices for rewards. I easily chose a random assortment of magic weapons and armor for the common and uncommon items. These rewards just mean that there is less for me to have to enchant later. Next is the rare item. What to get, skill books? I can buy skill books? As I read further I realize that skill books can only be rewarded through dungeons and not purchase through the store. Alright which rare skill do I want? Hello whats this? Magical tattooing? It seems to be a mix of enchantment and drawing. Requirements to learn are master level in one of the 2 skills and advanced level in the other. This means that with experimentation I might be able to combine other skills and discover new ones in the future. I already have master level enchanting so if I get the skill book I will need to learn and advance my drawing skill. Ok I will purchase it and learn it as soon as I can.
Finally I can choose one unique skill or item. What is available? Bloodlines, intelligent weapons, man how am I supposed to pick just one thing? Wait Loot King? This skill bestows a title and gives me infinite inventory, daddy like. I click on my choice before I can second guess myself.
You have been awarded the title of Loot King +2. As the first person to receive a unique skill on Earth you are granted the title of Snowflake +3.
Ooh a bonus title. The description of Loot King reads, This skill allows the user to store an infinite amount of material only limited by mass. Level 10 gives the user 10 tons of hauling capacity, and every 10 levels after that doubles the amount that can be carried. If the user reaches level 100 all restrictions on inventory weight will be removed allowing for an infinite storage capacity in an alternate sub-dimension. This skill can be combined with others to allow living things to be stored, but initially only non-living items are storable.
I just got an infinite bag of holding. Yes, it is the holy grail of all D&D nerds. Time for a happy dance, what, even kings need a happy dance every now and then. No size limit means I can build and carry a house or base eventually, just like in those eastern fantasy novels. If I can figure out which skill will let me store living things, I could sneak armies into different places. This skill is outrageous. The best thing is that it is unique. That means no one else on Earth can have it as long as I am around. With my current level of 23 I can haul around 20 tons of material. How awesome is that.
After playing around with my new ability, I mean practicing for the next hour, I fill my inventory with every supply I can think of including beds and an empty tool shed, just in case it rains and I need a premade shelter. This should make adventuring and dungeon diving much easier. Speaking of which I have less than a month to grind levels, raise points and map out local dungeons for use of my people. Well sooner started sooner done. I will arrange for an extended trip and come back 3-5 days before the Great Game changeover.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Here is 18 again in the right order.
Chapter 18: Credit Cards
After a wonderful nights sleep I get up and start to set things in order. First send workers to modernize Hidden Valley, second triple the supplies order to account for the new village and possible future people. Wait why stop at tripling? In less than a month everything is going to change. I am just going to max out my credit and convert everything except 1 million for emergencies into game currency and supplies.
This is great, the feeling of knowing you are never going to have to pay for something or pay off that pesky credit card bill. My dungeon diving can be put off for a day while I sort this out. I spend the first half of the day ordering everything I can think of, from seeds and fertilizer to food and womens sanitary products. I even ordered ten containers worth of toilet paper, because even if the world is ending I am a king and my butt should be clean. I ordered hard copies of survival books, education books, even novels, enough to fill 3-4 libraries worth. This should give my little kingdom a leg up in the next world and provide some cheap entertainment.
The second half of the day, I spent sneaking around my own property and creating storage areas. I had to create basic storage facilities for everything I just ordered. Simple stone walled sheds made with magic. The problem was I had to make sure no one could see what I was doing. If I build it with magic and people just discover it later they will rationalize it away. However, I do not know what would happen if they actually saw me growing new buildings out of the ground.
Everything should be prepared now. I sent a message to Edward and let him know I will be unavailable for a while. Everyone here at the resort knows about the incoming shipments and supplies and to just store it away. They probably think I am crazy, but who cares as long as they store it and take care of the shipment when it arrives. Alright that should wrap everything up I need to do here at the castle.
It is now time to plan my dungeon diving route. Since my level went up to 23, two new dungeon dots have been added to the world map. This means they are probably higher level. Biltmores dot turned yellow, I guess that means it is still level appropriate, but I have already cleared it once. Wait, I now have the dungeon explorer achievement that should give me more information about the various dungeons. I mentally select another red dot on the world map.
Goblin Caves level 25 recommended.
Ok, that is convenient. Lets see, start at Biltmore again, try for a new title and some more levels, than I will go from dungeon to dungeon start from the closest and working my way out from the castle. Sounds like a plan. If new dungeons pop up as I level up I will re-evaluate at that time.
Dear lord, two weeks of this dungeon crawling is exhausting. I picked up 5 new titles, Traditionalist +1, Every Way Possible +2, Poison King +3, Pentakill +5, and finally Speed Demon +3. I also leveled all the way up to 35. I got Poison King when I killed a goblin tribe by sneaking in and poisoning their food. Pentakill was an upgraded title. I first started with Doublekill. I received it for finishing two different dungeons in a single 24 hour period. I then decided to do speed runs to see if I could get a better title and received both the Speed Demon and Pentakill titles when I finished 5 different dungeons in a 24 hour period.
I have decided to specialize in my magic and primarily will raise my intelligence and wisdom stats. I will still add the odd point here and there into the other stats because it is always good to have high stats, but I think I will try and keep the intelligence and wisdom stats to be at least double of all my other stats except for luck. I have always felt it is better to be lucky than good and lets face it I would not even be here if it was not for my luck in the tutorial. Now my build looks like this.
Stats:
Name: Mark Anderson
Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1 Master Thief +1,
World Traveler +1, Wealthy +1, Dungeon Explorer +3, Unstoppable +2,
Army of One +1, Arsonist +1, Manifest Destiny +3, Not Nailed Down +1,
Army of One +1, Scourge of the Undead +1, Think Outside the Box +1,
Loot King +2, Traditionalist +1, Every Way Possible +2, Poison King +3,
Pentakill +5, Speed Demon +3
Level: 35 - 11% Unspent Attribute Points: 1
Strength: 65 HP: 650
Intelligence: 110 +40%MP MP: 3080
Wisdom: 110 +40% MP/Regen HP/Regen: 78% per 15 min.
Agility: 65 MP/Regen: 154% per 15 min.
Constitution: 65 +20% HP/Regen Luck: 80
Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire 100% Water 100% Air 100%
I think with these stats I am a rather OP broken character for the start of the Great Game. This should keep me alive and vastly increase the survival rate of my friends, family and kingdom. I am heading back to my little kingdom for a break and then 1 more week of leveling before the Great Game changeover. On the drive back I am going to explore a black dot dungeon. I should probably explain.
I was driving from the Goblin Caves dungeon to a Man Eating Plants Dungeon when this black dot suddenly appeared on my world map. It seems that the world map only automatically plots dungeons 10 levels higher than you and down. You have to be within 5 kilometers of a higher level dungeon for it to appear on the map. Coincidentally I now know that when a dungeon becomes 20 levels lower than you it turns green on the map. That means that red dots are level appropriate unexplored, yellow dots are level appropriate explored, green dots are low level dungeons, and black dots are high level dungeons.
With the cartographer skill I have mapped out the area and all of the dungeon locations and levels I have been to. This has leveled both the cartographer and drawing skill which means I can now access my magical tattooing skill. I have not tried it yet but look forward to some quick experiments when I reach the castle and a safe quiet environment. I am going to try the black dot dungeon on the way back because when I clicked on the world map all I got was special dungeon as the description. With all of my titles I am equal to a character level of over 75 which I think will keep me safe even in a higher level dungeon.
A NOTE FROM TENQUI
Text and Tables should be readable now.
Chapter 19: Bloodlines
As I step into the dungeon zone of the black dot dungeon I see the following message.
Welcome to the Blood Lines Dungeon. Recommended level 50+ dependent on bloodline selected. User may select Random and be guaranteed at least a rare bloodline if they survive. Please select Bloodline now.
A list of dozens of different animals and plants appears. Level 50+? Well I should be fine. I may only be level 35, but like I said I hit at a much higher level due to all my titles. Im going to try it. Since I do not know which bloodlines are the best I think I will take the random option to make sure I at least get a rare bloodline, time to try out my luck stat.
I mentally select random from the screen.
Eliminating all non-compatible, common, and uncommon bloodlines. Randomizing selections. Please spin wheel.
It actually took all the selections and put them on a virtual spinning wheel. It looks like some selections have a bigger pie wedge than others. That must mean they are more common even if they are rare bloodline. Well here goes nothing. I give the mental equivalent of a giant spin. Come on luck stat show me what your worth. The bloodlines are whirring by quicker than I can read them. The wheel is starting to slow down. There goes vampire, lycan just passed by, ooh titan that could have been fun. Still slowing, goodbye archmage, never liked high elves any way, the whole next section looks similar.
As it gets closer the wheel slows down, lets see it looks like these are all versions of dragons? Yes dragon heritage! How many games, books, and movies deal with draconic heritage. My inner geek is just screaming with glee. The colored dragons go by first as the wheel slows down to almost a stop. Red, green, black , gold, etc. Here comes eastern dragon, sky dragon, and finally the arrow stops on elemental dragon. I am not sure what an elemental dragon is but who cares, it is still a dragon.
Checking compatibility, since user has the designation Quadelementalist the Legendary Bloodline elemental dragon can be upgraded to King of the Elements Dragon Bloodline a unique bloodline. Does the user wish to test for this upgrade?
Of course I want to test for a unique bloodline. My luck stat has finally paid off big time.
I mentally select yes and receive the following message.
Elemental King of Dragons test, recommended level 150+ will start in 5, 4, 3,
Level 150+, I take it back thats too much, cancel, stop, no no no.
Enjoy the test.
I feel the familiar tug of teleportation and know that next is yep, I black out. I wake up in a featureless room about 10m X 10m. On each of the four walls is a door with a drawing on it. One has a mountain which I assume stands for the Earth element, one has a flame Fire, one has a cloud Air, and the final one looks like waves Water. After I examine each door a screen pops up.
User must defeat a dragon of each element before being recognized as worthy of being from the King of the Elements Dragon Bloodline. There is no time limit to the tests. User may exit after defeating 2 or more dragons and accept a lower bloodline or complete all 4 stages.
Huh this sounds extremely similar to the test I took during the beta test trial, just with dragons instead of golems. I honestly do not know if my luck is good or bad. I mean I get the chance at an awesome bloodline, but I could also die horribly. I guess most of this is my fault for being greedy for a rare or better bloodline. I should have realized that the rarer the bloodline the harder the test.
Nothing to do now but do my best. Ok, time to gear up. Stick with light armor, better to be fast and not get hit. I should probably customize my weapons for each dragon. Lets see if I fight the water dragon first I need to replace all ammunition with fire based stuff. Elements are usually weak against opposites. So pistol on each hip, a fire and lightning enchanted Warhammer to break scales on my back, my personal favorite Mr. Boom Boom, on a sling on my front. Mr. Boom Boom was my attempt at a grenade launcher. It sort of looks like an old school pump action paintball gun, just with a much larger caliber. I can adjust the amount of mana in each shell but have never tried putting more than 500 mana. Why, mostly because I thought I might blow myself up. It only has a range of 50-100 meters and 500 mana is already an explosion about 20-25 meters wide with a corresponding shockwave and crater. It looks awesome, but I dont know if it has any penetrating power. Never really tested that aspect of it out. Last but least, is the trusty MA 12.
Sooner started, sooner done. I walk to the door with the wave on it and open it and step through. The door disappears behind me. In front of me I see a coastline reminiscent of Northern California or Oregon, big crashing waves and an awesome scenic view. What I dont see is a water dragon. Maybe I have to search for it? Just as I think that I hear a roar in the distance and see what looks to be a large bird dive towards the ocean and come up with a fish.
As it flies back to the coast I realize my large bird is the dragon and its fish is a large seal. It must be at least 25 meters long and that seal has to weigh in excess of 200 kilos. Note to self, do NOT let it dive on me. I watch it disappear into what must be its sea side cliff lair.
I can easily see why the difficulty is set so high. However, I like to think outside the box and if what I am planning works, this should not only be easier than I thought but should not be that dangerous for me. I scout out the lair over the next couple of days and prepare my ambush plan.
The next time the water dragon leaves I scramble as fast as I can and enter its lair. The first thing I do is use my earth magic to tunnel an escape route out of this cave. Next I set up Mr. Boom Booms older brother at the entrance. No name for this one, but who knows but the end of the day it might be called dragon killer. This lovely is just a one shot mortar or artillery piece. I set its angle and hide to the side. You see there is only one way into the lair and while carrying its food the dragon has to flare its wings right before it lands. This leaves it totally exposed for a split second. If this works I will launch the shell right into its stomach from just about point blank range.
Aww crap, point blank range. Man am I glad I talk these things out in my head, that could have been horrible. Quick dig a trench, insert self and artillery into trench, make air holes. Ok now reposition artillery piece, at least now I shouldnt blow up with the dragon. Now its a waiting game. About an hour later I hear the dragon approaching. I peer out of the trench. I have to time this perfectly. In 3, 2, 1, now. I pump 750 mana into the shell, overkill is better than no kill. I see surprise in the dragons eyes as the shell launches towards it. Then the entire world erupts in flame. I hear the dragon scream over the sound of the flames and after a couple of seconds a distinct thump.
Once the world returns to a normal temperature I peek my head out to investigate the situation. Twitching and thrashing at the base of the cliff is the water dragon. Its wings are destroyed and its chest is a mess of broken and shattered scaled but it is still alive, although barely. OK 750 mana was not overkill. Now I feel bad, I did not want it to suffer. I put the newly christened dragon killer back into my inventory and take out my sniper rifle. 10 shots, it took 10 more shots for it to stop moving. I mean that is just ridiculous. I realize that it is a dragon but come on. I can only hope that a lot of that movement was involuntary from something that was already dying or almost dead, otherwise this might not be doable.
I am so glad I went with an ambush plan and not a frontal confrontation. I am just going to leave it down there for now in case it is faking. Ill just explore the lair while I wait. I loot everything I see and put it into inventory except one thing, a dragon egg. I do not know if I will even be able to hatch it or raise it, but the idea of a dragon pet is awesome. However I still do not have the skill to keep living things in my inventory. I make a little nest inside of my regular backpack and climb down towards the body of the one I killed. I throw a few rocks at its head and then put the whole carcass into my inventory.
Chapter 20: Dragon Hunting
Still no notice about clearing the level. I decide to hike back to where the door to the start of the challenge appeared. There is the door again. I open it up and walk back into the bland and featureless room.
Congratulations on passing the elemental dragon test of water. Hatch the egg for bonus rewards.
Bonus rewards are always good. Gamer knowledge dont fail me now. How to hatch a dragon egg? Lets see some stories have them surrounded by their element, but this guy was just in a nest of rocks so it must be something else. What other things are needed in the stories?
Mana, in a lot of stories high concentrations of mana is essential for the birth of magic creatures. OK lets see if this will work. I hold the egg in both hands and imagine my mana as a cool stream of water leaving me and being absorbed by the egg. This seems to be working. I have to stop after about 10 minutes and recharge my mana. The egg still has not hatched so I will repeat until I get a result. My mana recharges very quickly now due to my higher level and bonuses. One nap and about 10 cycles later I feel like the egg is about to hatch. That equals almost 50,000 mana , hungry little egg isnt it.
The egg cracks and the cutest little blue head pops out and looks at me. I can feel a mental connection with the little guy. No words just mental impressions. These impressions make me realize a couple of things number one it is a guy and number two it now regards me as its parent. The largest impression I get is that this little guy is hungry. I feed it a few chunks of meat from my inventory and think up a name. Azure, I will call him Azure. As soon as I name him I get a Great Game notice.
You have successfully tamed your first magic creature. You have been granted the title Beast Master +1. This skill combines with infinite inventory to allow living creatures to be stored in your inventory in a limited amount. You can store your level X 10 living things in your inventory. Time will be frozen for stored creatures.
This solves some problems, like what was I going to do with little Azure while I am fighting. Well as I always say sooner started sooner done. I store Azure in my inventory and head towards the fire door. Before I enter I swap out all of my fire gear for Ice and water ammunition and enchanted weapons.
As I cross through the fire door I see a smoking volcano in the distance. This should be a stereotypical place where a fire dragon is located. I keep an eye on the sky as I hike towards the volcano. There is my target. Surprisingly this dragon is not red but a black dragon with a smoky grey underbelly. Maybe to represent burned things, soot, and smoke? This dragon looks bigger than the last one. It is probably 30-35 meters long. This probably mean that each dragon will be stronger than the last one in the challenge.
Same strategy different element. The only change is that I put the dragon egg in this lair straight into storage to protect it. Lets see 750 mana was not an instant kill last time and this one is bigger so lets try an even 1,000 mana in an ice shell. A few hours later my preparations pay off. I am cold, the dragon is dead and back to the waiting room I go.
I call out Azure and play around and feed him while pouring mana into the new egg to hatch his new little brother or sister. Several hours later Azure has a younger brother named Bruce. Why Bruce, because he looks like a Bruce. More precisely he looks like a Sir Bruce Shadow Flaming Ember of Doom, but I am just going to call him Bruce for short.
For being the first to tame 2 magic creatures you are awarded the title Master Tamer +2.
Fantastic, Azure has a little brother and I get a new title. Two more doors to go, I think air will be next followed by earth. I just have this feeling that earth is going to be trouble.
Just shy of two days later and the air challenge is complete and my little dragon family has grown by one little sister named Elvira. She is cute mischievous little thing with white scales that have dark grey edges. She gets along well with the boys so no troubles there.
For being the first to tame 3 dragonkin you are granted the title Dragon Tamer +3. For holding 3 or more taming skills your entire inventory is now available to use for living organisms. Mana dependent creatures and plants can siphon off your mana to continue growth while in stasis if you allow it."
Another boost, these titles normally are probably spread out among an entire world. But due to my luck and unique circumstances I alone am receiving them which is just making me more and more over powered. I like it. This is what I was hoping for. With a few experiments, not with my dragon babies, I should be able to find the limits and how much mana this will take. The should be extremely helpful for the growth of my little dragons and with my ridiculously high mana regeneration rate I should be able to siphon off an amount equal to what I am regenerating and speed up the growth of my little ones making them stronger and more useful to me faster.
Before that can happen I need to clear this last elemental challenge Earth. The other doors while not life threatening did not seem up to par for a 150+ level challenge. Maybe it seemed easy because of my ambushes, but I feel that the final test will step up the difficulty.