Chapter 18

Talk and Test

At home, I pulled up the chatroom with Violet and Santa. Sure enough, the mocking had already started.

From Santa, I had a litany of comments like “I can’t believe you pulled out the ‘Death General’ voice on an interviewer. That was hilarious! I just couldn’t stop remembering the last time you used that voice at the Battle of Karkasta. You were so damn serious, and the battle lasted like five minutes. Good times, good times. Or the time we reinforced Glory with that platoon of Dreadbone Destroyers and the only sentient you were addressing was me. Then, of all places, you break it out for an interview? Priceless Laz, just priceless.”

Of course, he would only remember the humorous times. I must have used that tone a thousand times over the years, almost always for appropriately serious situations. Santa being Santa probably ignored me for any of the times he was present.

Violet’s comments were a bit more painful.

“You pulled out that voice for an interview… what the hell, Laz? You may have lost your touch for normal communication, but that was something you never lost, even at the end. That ability to step up and use that voice to inspire troops about to fight a hopeless battle. The way you always managed to spark their courage and give them hope… we called you ‘Death General’ for a reason, you know. You really stepped up after Glory passed, I was so proud of you back then. Using that tone for something like an interview dishonors all those that died for us. I understand why you used it, but I’m still disappointed.”

Damn, that cut deep. I would have expected more teasing and less actual admonishment from her. Oh yeah, this was a blend of Vi and her younger self. That explains it. She was such a hard-ass, in the beginning, at least that’s what the stories said. She didn’t loosen up until she started hanging out with me and my squad. This would take some getting used to. Her follow-up message came just as I finished reading the first one.

“Sorry about that, my younger self got the better of me. Good job with the interview, although it was a shock to see you look so… soft. The ‘voice’ might have been a good choice, people need a reality check. It might not kick in now, but when things start to happen, they will remember your words. Your words always had a way of sticking with people Laz. Still, that might have been a bit much for a first interview. You never did understand when to take the lighter approach, and this younger brain of mine is finding it charming again, so stop it.”

Ha! I accidentally caused her to squirm, ‘General Voice’ was officially used for a good cause.

Santa piped up with, “Hah Violet, we gonna see history repeat itself? You two were unbearable, so please don’t.”

I had to chime in at that, “Oh hell no, never happening. We were ultimately doomed to fail. Not going through that again for anything, man.”

Getting away from this topic seemed like a valid reason to bring up my predicament.

“I have to tell two of my party members something to explain why I know so much. The interview tipped them off when I made that comment about the NPCs. I knew it would happen, but had to get people really talking to the NPCs as soon as possible. I’m pretty sure I can’t tell them AoA isn’t a game yet, so any ideas?”

After a few minutes, Santa sent an idea that was appropriately… Santa. “You could claim to have saved a fairy and been bestowed knowledge or gotten a scroll or something, maybe a skill called ‘System Intuition’?”

That was a terrible idea. It wouldn’t hold up, and when they figured it out, it would break any trust between us. Violet’s idea was a bit more palatable, although it would be harder to pull off.

“Tell them you time traveled due to an accident, you don’t know how or why, but the game had already been out for a while, so you know all sorts of things about it. They will find it hard to believe so tell them about the Shadow King you are hunting and teach them something like Soul Sense in-game. It might freak them out a bit, but when it carries over to the real world, they will be ready to believe anything. If Soul Sense wouldn’t be a good fit, let us know, I’m sure between the three of us we know enough sensory skills to find something to teach them.”

That… might just work. Soul Sense I could teach to Angel, she was the only one it would fit. If I taught Dave to form the basics of a Warrior’s Heart then that would work, Kate was something of a mystery though. I put the query to my comrades.

Santa was the one that found a good answer, Violet suggested Mind Sense, but that really wouldn’t help. Santa knew both Blood Detection and Water Sense. Either one would help Kate, although the training would be tricky since I hadn’t learned them myself. It might just work better to teach her something else entirely, like maybe the Soul stat. That would give her at least a basic grasp of her own soul and might carry over.

I thanked my friends and switched over to the chat for my party. I found a note from Kate saying that she wouldn’t be on for the rest of the day and tomorrow she had a family thing. Dave suggested postponing the discussion until she was back. Since he said it in the chatroom, he obligated me to include Angel as well. Shit. No doubt he did that on purpose out of a sense of fairness or something. As much as I would like to, I can’t fault him for that.

Dave said he would take two days to train his flying slashes and Angel chimed in that she would study curses some more so she would have something other than her class skills to work with. She also congratulated us on our interview.

I sent back a note to Angel that she might want to learn something like the basic mana bolt, just to have some instant damage up her sleeve. It also serves as a great base to build off when creating spells. I once met a ritualist that managed to morph it into a flying post hole digging ritual that activated upon hit. To this day, I’m not sure how he managed that. It turned his mana bolt into something that dug a five-foot-deep hole in a target. All the pure mana spells are adaptable and something all mages should learn as a foundation.

Before logging in I made another post under Oracle claiming that the famous player Lazarus must believe me, as evidence I quoted my speech about AoA offering a new life. I could see on the message boards that some of the conspiracy nuts were already grabbing onto my idea and spreading it. Just wait until a few months from now when the game will run without being plugged in, that should really knock them for a loop.

With that, I laid on my bed and flicked the switch to return to Cloudburn.

With the others off training, I was free to continue the hunt for the Shadow King. The interview had made me realize I was being an idiot. My first stop was the Adventurer’s Guild, where I outsourced the damn scouting. I posted a quest that paid for the borders of each zone in the Shiverwood to be identified and mapped, with better payouts the farther in the zone was. Any group of half-decent rogues should be able to do it with no problems if they avoided combat.

One of the stranger things in the game was that detailed maps of the areas weren’t available for purchase. Even general zone maps were scarce. Fortunately, country maps were available, but for the NPCs not to have local maps was an odd discrepancy. Over the years I got the feeling there had been a reason for it, but I never invested myself enough to figure it out.

With my quest posted, I devoted some time to practicing the new skills I had gotten from Blood of the Stone, at levels 15 and 20, respectively.

Hydraulics

Passively increases the maximum pressure and compression of any fluids you create. Maximum density is also slightly increased. This skill scales off Int and skill level.

This was pretty solid as far as passives for a mage went. In general, mages tended to get a lot of things to augment whatever they specialized in. Fire mages would get something like Burn Brightly or Third Degree to either up the heat of their flames or guarantee a persistent burn effect. Mages that dealt with water or other fluids often got a skill like this to increase the power of their element, although the specifics tended to be tailored to the class and specific element.

Normal elemental conjuration increases in potency with skill and Int, but there is a big difference between a gallon of water that weighs 25 pounds and one that weighs 40 pounds when you smash someone in the face with it. Any mage worth their salt gets as many so-called ‘elemental potency’ skills as they can. It makes a huge difference if you get hit with a wave with the density of molasses. I once met a girl who had so many passives stacked that her water was comparable to mercury. She liked to conjure rainstorms over targets and use a small gravity spell to make the rain fall extremely fast. The result was a cloud that put more holes in a target than a machine gun.

The Hydraulics skill would give a nice boost to my water and oil. The skill effecting all liquids was impressive, even though it probably sacrificed some potency for the effect. This was the second potency enhancing skill I got from Blood of the Stone, Molten Strength being the first.

The other skill was an active one.

Return of the Ancients

Summon manifestations of the old world from oil. Summon strength based on the amount of oil used and oil affinity. Mana cost based on the strength of the summon. Duration based on Wis. Max number of summons active based on Int and strength of summons.

This was a fun one. To test it, I went to a clearing in the Greenbeach area of the forest.

Conjuring a blow-up pool’s worth of oil took a good chunk of my mana and made a large puddle. When I cast Return of the Ancients… well, it was just cool.

A misshapen figure that looked like a mix between a velociraptor, a skeletal gorilla, and some type of earth elemental rose from the pool of oil, sucking up the oil in the process. It was pitch black and covered in the rainbow sheen typical of gasoline where the light touched it. With bones and flesh of solid oil, it let off a powerful stench. The amalgam of flesh, bone, and stone was less horrifying since it was all one substance, but the exposed muscle along its arms and a third of its torso more than made up for it. The razor-sharp claws that were its hands were matched by the deadly teeth of the raptor head. Its legs looked more like shattered columns with bones protruding from them like the damned sword in the stone.

I smiled. This was a cool skill. I directed the thing to attack a half-buried boulder. It shattered it in a single strike, although the speed at which it covered the twenty feet to the rock was the more impressive part. When I had more mana and skill levels, this skill would give me an army.

I hadn’t been sure I would keep using Oil as an element once I was done with this class, the stone and lava parts were what I was more interested in. This skill, however, was a compelling reason not to abandon the element entirely. It is very hard to argue that a half dozen or more ancient oil-beasts wouldn’t come in handy at some point.

In an hour of testing, I figured out that I could only have one creature this size at the moment. A quick identification told me its name was Bony Raptrilla. I could however have two smaller summons that resembled skeletal wolf-sized Ankylosaurus with two tails and a single massive blunt paw. Those were called Bony Macewolves and seemed to be pack hunters. I could also summon six things the size of rats that looked like slimes, with rat heads and front paws. That would be strange enough if it weren’t for the many small, curved blades protruding from them. Identify called them Blade Vermin, totally ignoring the slime part, I guess really old things were also badly named.

All the summons looked like nature hadn’t figured out what they were supposed to be yet, and magic was the only thing keeping it alive.

A cool combo I discovered was that when I dismissed the summon it reverted to oil under my control, even in mid-air. I wasn’t sure what I would do with that, but I was sure it could be useful sometime.

When I tried infusing the oil with other mana types before summoning, I found that it just wouldn’t click; I had a feeling that once I raised the skill higher, that would change. All my practice only got the skill to level 3 so that would be a long way off.

I ended up spending the next few hours meditating, practicing mana control, and trying to figure out more about Oil Magic. So far, I have found it good for combustion and as an accelerant, but nothing else. If I could figure out a type of magic it was related to that was common enough, then I could study that to get some insights into Oil.

While I was doing an old mana exercise, reenacting battles with tiny figures of mana making up the people and terrain, I suddenly heard a voice behind me.

“Is that the Battle of Bunker Hill?”

I immediately converged the mana I was using into lava and brought it with me as I spun around, ducking to avoid a possible headshot. I only barely managed to stop the molten whip from colliding with the five-ten blond man and burning him to ash.

“Not anymore.”

He looked at me with slightly wide eyes. “Holy shit man! Didn’t mean to startle you, sir, just thought the battle was cool.”

I dissipated the whip of lava and identified him. He was a player named RockyRoad nearly 20 levels below me, and his name was red.