Maya held her Trickster's Orb. "Tell me about the Trickster’s specialization path."

The familiar invitation appeared, and Maya clicked accept. Today’s venue was as surreal and unusual as always; the two of them stood on a floor of clouds while an endless forest spread overhead. It made Maya dizzy to look at, and she kept her gaze firmly down on the clouds.

"Well well! Look who it is, one of my wayward tricksters, finally coming back. Where have you been, I wonder?"

Maya shrugged. "Around. So, what's the answer?"

"Ah ah, you don't get to just barge through this like a transaction. I've finally got a chance to talk to you, and there are a few important things I need to apprise you of since we last spoke."

"Oh? Such as?"

"Most importantly, I have some new quest lines available! By special commission only, of course, can't let them loose in the wild. No telling what the rest of the world would do with this kind of power."

"So what are they?"

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Of course. Why wouldn’t I?"

"Oh, no special reason. But you know how things are. Once you decide to play, you can’t back out."

"So by hearing about the quest it becomes mandatory?"

He grinned. "Exactly!"

"How hard is it going to be?"

"I don’t know. It’s an information gathering questline, with rewards for completing any of the objectives even if they’re ones I didn’t know existed at the time. So you can do anything so long as you contribute something."

Maya grimaced. Information gathering was not one of her strong points. "Can you give me the information about your specialization first before I decide anything?"

The Trickster shook his head. "Once your question is answered, our time here ends. You’re fortunate I’m feeling generous today."

Or, rather, he was feeling generous because she was fortunate. She knew how this worked. But if the questline was only available because her luck was higher than zero, it should theoretically be something to help and not to hinder her. The hindering quests, like today’s to murder a quest NPC, came with negative luck rolls.

"Okay, I’ll take it."

The Trickster grinned. "Excellent! This month’s meta quest is as follows: Discover everything possible about The Oracle, her influence over the players, and most particularly how and why her ancient shrine is being rebuilt."

Maya thought her heart would have stopped if not for the fact that she was a virtual construct in a virtual world. She certainly froze in shock.

"For a long time, my agents have been successful in keeping my duplicitous sister at bay, but now she seems to be again exerting control over the fate of the world. At a time when my own plans have been progressing so beautifully, this seems a dire omen. And one which should be rectified as soon as possible. So, the quest is thus. Find out how and why she is able to interact with the players again and, if possible, put a stop to it. There will be extra bonuses for anyone who can bring her plans to ruin and prevent her meddling any further."

Maya needed to find Yinon and warn him. If he was about to be a target for every trickster in the game… no, if he was already a target for every trickster in the game, he needed to be on his guard. She suddenly wished she’d kept the Diviner’s Orb to herself, never shared it with anyone. If she’d been in control, if she hadn’t let it get out into the world…

No, no. This was what the Oracle had wanted. And if it came down to an indirect confrontation with the Trickster, well, that was her business, not Maya’s. She just hoped Rion and Yinon were okay. She hadn’t heard anything from them since her impromptu vacation.

New mission: Ousting An Oracle - find information leading to the Oracle’s downfall, or put a stop to her agents and their actions. Reward: Increased favour with the Trickster, +(variable)

"I’ll see what I can find," Maya promised faintly. "Specialization?"

"Fate’s Follower." The Trickster grinned wider. "You know the purpose of a specialization, right?"

"Uh, to augment the class bonuses."

"Not exactly. It rearranges derivatives regardless of where they’re obtained. You can have a specialization without having a class, they are unrelated to each other. And Fate’s Follower is the purest form of that rearranging. Each day one of your derivatives will be reduced to 1, and the remainder moved to another. There are conversion rates, naturally, but all quite advantageous."

"To 1. Including health?"

"Yes, naturally. None is excluded."

"And does it provide any other bonuses?"

"For every day that you play with it active, you gain my favour. I realize it’s a lot to risk on the whims of fate."

"And what use is your favour, really?"

"Special quests, items, even perks and buffs at higher levels. Haven’t we been over this before?"

"It’s been a while."

"When you’re my age, time doesn’t seem quite so important any longer."

"And I’m very forgetful," Maya said, a bit defensively.

"Really? I was under the impression that everyone here remembered perfectly."

"Sometimes, but not usually," Maya mumbled.

"You should file a complaint."

Maya laughed. "With whom?"

"Mmmm, good point. Too bad there’s no higher powers around to help you out."

Maya narrowed her eyes at him, accidentally catching a glimpse of the inverted landscape above. She swayed unsteadily, then frowned. "Are you implying you can help improve my memory?"

"I have edit access to a great many things," the Trickster said slyly. "Player parameters among them. Only with permission, naturally, I’m forbidden from locking anything without your consent. But if you were to provide that permission, I could do a great deal which you might be hard pressed to accomplish on your own nearly so easily."

Maya couldn’t say she wasn’t tempted. Sevard had advised against using any of the quick-edit solutions available online, but the Trickster was…

Probably infinitely worse.

"Not today. I’ll think about it. Is there more to the specialization?"

"Only that I alone can grant it. Do you want to claim the Fate’s Follower specialization, my dear trickster? It synergizes well with your main class."

"How so?"

"Oh, just minute bonuses depending on your luck roll."

"And penalties?"

"No, actually. Putting yourself and your attributes at the whims of destiny is penalty enough. Only bonuses."

"That sounds too good to be true."

"As you mentioned, being at 1 health all day is a rather significant handicap, and you’re risking it every day. But our time grows short. Do you want the specialization, or not?"

"I can always drop it later if I find it unplayable, right?"

"Of course. Unless you make a binding agreement to maintain it forever, but I see no reason to ask that of you at present."

New specialization available: Fate's Follower. Do you want to set your specialization to Fate's Follower? Time remaining: 23h 59m

She frowned at the reminder of her character’s soulbound class status, but wasn’t really concerned any longer. She could always play on Mayon if the Trickster got too annoying.

She stared at the specialization offer for a long moment, wavering. But there was a good chance she'd end up crippled in either health or energy more than half the time, and it just didn't sound fun to her. Maybe for hardcore tricksters who didn't care about anything but getting reputation, but she had her own agendas and very rarely did they align with the Trickster's. She reluctantly dismissed the window

"I’ll think about it, but not right now."

"Take your time. You know where to find me. Until next time, dear trickster!" The Trickster waved cheerily at her, as the world faded and blurred back to normal. She felt a brief vertigo when the sky appeared above her and the ground beneath, but quickly reoriented to the regular world.

This time she arrived back at the academy without encountering any strange or annoyingly familiar people. She headed to the Fire classroom in case anyone was still hanging around, and to her pleased surprise there were actually several of her fellow mages present. Vey, Nalana, the one whose name she couldn't remember but who looked like the most stereotypical old wise wizard, and, to her surprise, Rion. She wondered if his presence here had anything to do with the Trickster’s new crusade against the Oracle.

"Rion! How’s Yinon doing?"

He turned, frowning a moment, and Maya realized she was still wearing all her tanking equipment. Then he put the pieces together and nodded. "Oh, hi, nice to see you again. Yinon is busy, I’m here to pick up some materials… whenever Raidah decides to show up."

"They’ve been busy," said the wizard irritably. "I swear, the number of interruptions today is incredible."

"Yushal…" Rion sighed. "If you’re so against interruptions, you have a room of your own."

"I require access to the research materials here," retorted the wizard, Yushal. "As you would know if you even bothered to show up any more."

"I've been doing important things elsewhere," Rion said absently, scribbling in his ever-present notebook. "As you'd know if you cared about anyone besides yourself."

"Anyone want to help me with my progression plan?" Maya asked with forced cheer. "I haven’t decided on a specialization yet, and I’d like to hear the options for classes that would be appropriate for a mage."

That stopped them sniping at each other, at least. Yushal turned to Maya, and Rion went back to his notebook.

Yushal regarded her with a tight expression, but managed to maintain a facade of politeness when he spoke. "Have you considered ‘Mage’ perhaps?"

Rion snorted softly, but gave no other indication of joining the conversation.

"Aren’t you already a mage?" Nalana asked.

"Well, I’m considering options," Maya evaded the question. "Battlemage, for instance. Are there advantages to Battlemage over standard Mage? Or is it really as useless as it sounds?"

"Useless? Hardly. It increases spell damage."

"Oh, that does sound useful."

"But it doesn’t do great at utility, so if you go battlemage you’re going battle mage. Just a warning."

"Well, setting aside class for now, what about specializations? Are there any I should be aware of?"

"Star Chainer and Sorcerer are the usual ones people talk about. Consuming Soul or Skytouched if you’re going for a DPS glass cannon build. Some use Steadfast Body for the health boost, or find something special that synergizes with their particular build. Can’t think of any that would be very good for mages though."

"Can you tell me more about those?"

"Star Chainer is a quest unlock, allowing very rapid casting once you build up momentum at the cost of stealth. Each spell cast reduces the cooldown by half and adds another chaining bonus multiplier. It’s best for mages with a small, focused arsenal of fast spells that can be chained many times without running out of energy."

Maya could see why Trixy would want it. With magic a scarce commodity, having one or two simple spells you could chain into rapid-fire high power damage dealers could be a game changer.

"And the others?"

"Sorcerer is basically the opposite, decreasing switching penalties for those with a broad arsenal. It eats a big chunk of stamina, but provides a flat percentile boost to energy, so if you’re spec'ing into energy it can give much more than it takes. Skytouched is one of the basic specializations, converting half your stamina to energy. And Consuming Soul is a faction-based upgrade to that, converting all stamina to energy."

"That sounds less than useful," Maya mused. She used stamina in several of her attacks, most notably Windborne Blade, and didn't like the idea of it being crippled so drastically, so Consuming Soul was definitely out. Even if having a huge energy pool would make spells like Magestrike or Heart of Magma more affordable and less draining, she felt it wouldn't be right for her. Perhaps Skytouched, if none of the others worked out.

"Where do you get Star Chainer or Sorcerer?"

"I don't actually remember, I've been happy with Spiritheart myself, but I’m more a warrior than a mage anyway." Nalana looked around the room, but Rion was fully absorbed in his notebook and Yushal was pointedly ignoring them. "Vey?"

Veyanto jumped, surprised at being addressed, and glanced up at them with wide eyes. "Huh?"

"Do you know where to find Star Chainer or Sorcerer?" Maya repeated.

"Oh. Uhhh, Star Chainer is in zone 4, there's a hidden questline at the Nirsym magic shop guy, I think. Sorcerer... I think there's a nomad quest in zone three? No, that's not right, that was for a barbarian or herald. Zone five maybe?" He frowned and rubbed at his forehead. "I don't remember, sorry."

"That's fine. Thank you." Maya briefly wondered if she could track down Justa. If anyone would know the minutia of the game, it would be the wiki-obsessed sprite. "How do I access the wiki?" she asked. "I've seen people using it, but I thought World 9352 is off grid?"

"If you saw anyone using it while playing, they'd be using parallel hacks," Nalana explained. "Which means they probably aren't permanent and use an external rig."

"Oh. So for a permanent...?"

Nalana shook her head. "Unless you get illegal mods, not going to work. You'd need to go to a net hub."

"Ugh." Maya didn't particularly want to wait in line for hours on world 882454 or whatever it was, especially not for just a specialization path. Star Chainer didn't sound so bad. It might not improve her casting quantity like an energy boost would, but increasing her DPS sounded like a valuable tradeoff. "Would the Star Chainer bonuses stack with the increased damage from Battlemage?"

"I don't see why they wouldn't. Classes and specializations are separate, the overlap is just a bonus."

"Okay. Good to know."

Still, from the sounds of it, Star Chainer would be less advantageous for the sort of big, expensive spells she hoped to be making next time her luck was high.

Well, neither was immediately available, and she didn’t have to make a choice right away. "For now, how do I get my hands on Skytouched?"