"Oh, Rion, can I talk to you for a few minutes?" Maya asked, sidling toward the dark elf.

"Hm?" he asked, raising his head distractedly, glancing around until he settled on Maya. "What do you need?"

"I just wanted to check in." She lowered her voice. "How is Yinon coming? Can we talk privately somewhere?"

Rion frowned, then nodded and stood. "Sure. Let's go outside."

Maya followed him out into the spacious grounds, toward a quiet corner with a tree and some flowerbeds away from anyone else and with clear line of sight in case anyone tried to sneak up on them.

"What are you working on?" Maya asked while they walked. "You're always scribbling in that notebook."

"At the moment? One of yours, actually. The Sparkburst spell you finished. I feel like there's something, some key to the whole fire line that I can figure out if I just cross-reference enough of it."

Maya smiled. "I have a couple other fire variations if you need more references," she said. "They're based on Spark, though—"

"That's fine," Rion said, looking up with a pleased expression still just short of a smile. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him properly smile, he always looked serious. "I can use as many reference points as possible."

"Can you record it from watching, or do you need any back-end?"

"Would you cast it three times for me?"

Maya nodded and cast in triple succession, first Flame Whisper, then the more powerful Flame Word, pausing in between to recover energy. Both were combined versions of Spark and Wind Whisper, but Rion scribbled furiously in his note-taking while she cast, then looked up and nodded.

"Thank you. This definitely rules out some of my working theories, which narrows it down. You've probably saved me two months of heading down pointless side trails."

"Happy to be of service," Maya said, smiling. "You're welcome to share those notes with anyone else in Fire you think could benefit from them. It's about time I made an actual contribution around here."

"I'll do that." He glanced around, nodded when he saw no one, and lowered his voice. "You wanted to know about Yinon?"

"Yes. I've just learned that some very powerful forces are attempting to disrupt any progress on the Oracle's shrine—"

"Temple. It's bigger than any shrine."

"—and prevent her return to power at any cost," Maya finished. "I was wondering if you've had any problems."

"Yes, constantly. But nothing we can't handle. Are you considering joining us? There's plenty of room for acolytes."

Maya shook her head. "I don't think I can. I have existing obligations."

"Well, you know where to find us if you change your mind."

"Actually I don't."

"You don't?"

"No, I was never able to progress to the temple-building—"

"Repairing."

"—temple-repairing stage of the questline."

"It's in zone 5, toward the center of the north-eastern quadrant. Just off that stream that feeds north to the bay."

Maya shrugged. "I'm not terribly familiar with the area. I've mostly stayed around the leypillar, the Plains are a bit high level for me."

"Well, now you know. Is there anything else? I'd like to get back as soon as possible, so once Raidah shows up with my materials I should be leaving."

"No, you can go. I just wanted to warn you that there may be disruptions."

"Thanks." Rion grimaced. "There have been, and I'll let Yinon know they may escalate. If you want to see our progress, come visit. You'll be impressed, I promise." He waved, then started back toward the buildings, already flipping back and forth in his notebook, pen poised.

Maya smiled. It was good to know the Diviner quest line was progressing nicely. Now she just had to decide how to deal with the Trickster's interest in it. Could she feed him false information? Or would that just be asking him to curse her again. Mmm, maybe better not to risk lying to the Trickster until she was confident in her deception ability.

Before she could decide anything, an unfamiliar voice interrupted her musing.

"Maya Starborn, where are you?"

Maya jumped at the sudden interruption. "Hello?" She turned, but saw no one. "Who's this?"

"Lucy. Sevard told me to meet you but every time I've come by your place you've been out."

Oh. Ohh. Right, Sevard had a trickster friend, she was going to hang out - 'lem'? - with Maya while he was off doing his important Sevard things elsewhere.

"Right. Lucy. Of course. I'm— where are you?"

"At the moment? I'm working on my advancement maze, but I can be in your zone any minute if you're ready."

"No rush, I'm doing fine."

A pause. "Are you?"

"Yes," Maya said, a bit indignantly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Sev mentioned you have self-esteem issues."

"I'm... I'm fine."

"And that you seem like you really need a friend."

"I have friends."

"Good. So, when can we meet?"

"Uh, soon... when do you want to?"

"I promised Sev I'd look out for you, so I'm at your disposal until he's back."

"Well, I wouldn't want to interrupt your advancement—"

"As much as I plan to be the fourth person to break 50," Lucy said wryly, "this advancement trial isn't as straightforward as the others, even for a trickster."

Maya blinked. She'd assumed Sevard's friend would be close to his own level, in tier four or five. "You're trying to break fifty? So you're one of the leader leaders?"

"It's not that hard. The experience bonuses from luck mean that, given enough time, the entire top will be all tricksters. No one else has a chance to keep up. The tier trials slow things down a little, but not enough. Look at Cydrin. He's catching up to the leaders at an unprecedented rate."

"Well, that's true. I suppose it makes sense. It's kind of sad, though."

"Don't waste too much time feeling bad. It's possible for anyone to get trickster if they really want it. Not like we're cheating or anything. It's not even a real exploit, just a glitch available to anyone."

"Anyone permanent."

"Well, the others aren't going to stick around anyway. This isn't the sort of world realers would care for. It's pretty... niche. You have to be willing to put up with a slow advancement slog, a wonky stat system, weird roadblocks, and glitches that should have been fixed centuries ago. Oh, and the crazy players who think they can turn the world into their personal kingdom."

"How long have you been playing?"

"Oh, who keeps track of that kind of thing?"

Maya tried to remember, how long had she been here? A month or two, probably. Not long. But, she supposed she saw how you could lose track. The way days blurred together, not divided up by a need to sleep the way it was back on earth. If not for her luck forcing her to roll each day, she could easily get lost in a project for days on end without noticing the passage of time.

In fact, she couldn't be sure it had been only a month. She felt like it had been a month, or maybe someone had told her it was.

"You still there?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah. Just trying to remember how long I've been in. Two months, I think."

"Wait, you're a new player? Not just new here, new to the database?"

"Yeah. I was uploaded in the last batch of, uh, founders, I think they called it."

"Weird. I can't even imagine being from so long ago. I uploaded around 2300, but those founders, they're from like two hundred years before that."

Or longer. Maya laughed nervously. "Yep. As everyone keeps reminding me, I'm the odd one out."

"Nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed."

"Good." Lucy went silent again. "So, when should we meet, and where?"

"What exactly are you planning on doing with me?" Maya asked. "Because I do have other plans."

"Good. Do your other plans. Let me know when you need me. My call name is Zanetta. Call me when you need me. Okay?"

"Okay. Good. Thank you."

"And do call me," she said sternly. "I won't have Sev on my case for neglecting my duty."

"You really don't need to worry about me."

"See, that makes me worry. Because Sev told me you'd do this, and I thought he was exaggerating."

"I'm not going to get in any trouble without a watcher or anything," Maya protested.

"Perhaps not, but I am unwilling to take that risk. I promise you, I will be much more upset if you don’t bother me than if you do."

"Alright, I’ll keep it in mind."

"If you feel like you need anything," Zanetta pressed, "call me immediately."

"Okay, yes, I’ll call you."

"Thank you."

The connection ended, and Maya exhaled slowly. She wasn’t sure what to make of Zanetta, but she dutifully wrote down her name in case she ever needed to call. For now she had a specialization to collect. As it happened, the Travelers’ Hall wasn’t just for class trainers, but specialization masters as well. She hadn’t realized there was a second floor.

The greeter repeated his spiel about choosing a secondary class, but she asked him about a specialization and he pointed her to a door on the far left of the room. On the other side a wide staircase led up to the second floor, which was smaller and less populated than the first floor. Six NPCs sat around at their desks, spread in a semicircle around a deep red area rug beneath a faceted chandelier. Stepping onto it made Maya feel mildly uncomfortable, like she was claiming a spotlight, but this was the quickest way to unlock the basic specializaitons.

"I’m looking for Skytouched," she said, and one of the seated NPCs nodded.

The one sitting on the far left. "I am the teacher for the Skytouched. This specialization will convert 50% of your stamina into energy and is a favored starting specialization for mages. Are you interested in accepting the Skytouched specialization at this time?"

"I think so, but hang on. Let me see what the others are." The mages had mentioned a couple, but not the full six.

She turned to the first teacher in line, who smiled. "Steadfast Body converts half of stamina into health at a 3-2 conversion ratio."

"3 health for 2 stamina?" Maya asked. That actually sounded--

"No, 3 stamina for 2 health."

Maya frowned. "What? But health is cheaper than stamina. You can get five health for one stat point, while the max stamina you can get is 3. Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"I know nothing of these things, only what my specialization offers. And it is as I said."

"Well, that's useless. Thank you. Next?"

"Spiritheart." The trainer smirked. "Same as that useless thing, but for energy into health instead. And given your obvious interest in Skytouched, I'm sure this is the last specialization you'd consider."

Maya nodded. "You're right. Next?"

"Shining Soul converts half of health into energy."

"Directly?"

"Directly."

Now that was something to consider. She really liked having some tankiness, but if she ever decided to go glass cannon, health was cheaper than any of the others.

Wait. In fact...

"Hang on, I need to do some math." Maya pulled up her journal and started calculating.

5 health per point, verses the 3 health per point gained by Attunement. Even siphoning half her health into energy, that would still leave her with a whole lot more of both. It would be only 1 energy fewer per 2 stat points than if she went with a pure attunement build, and still give the same benefit as if she'd put half her points into sturdiness?

She stared at the numbers. That... that had to be wrong. It didn't make sense that the optimal path for a mage was to put every stat point into maxing health!

But unless there were some hidden benefit to choosing attunement over sturdiness, this was absolutely the winning move.

"Let me get back to you," Maya said, frowning. "Next?"

"Heart of Motion converts half of health into stamina. Directly."

So, same thing, but for physical fighters. "Next?"

"Seatouched converts half of energy into stamina."

So the inverse of Skytouched, and that brought her to the final teacher again, who smiled. "Are you ready to commit to Skytouched?"

"No, actually, I think I'm going with Shining Soul."

Suddenly glad she hadn't assigned her points from leveling in zone two, she returned to the third tutor and claimed the Shining Soul specialization, which had a description exactly as stated. She confirmed the choice and checked her stat sheet. Even wearing all her tanking gear - which she’d need to remember to change out of at some point - her health was down to 186.

Hoping this wasn’t a stupid plan, she dropped all eight of her remaining stat points into Sturdiness. 206 health. She still felt very squishy, but then glanced at her energy total and grinned. 457.

On second thought, maybe her tanking equipment was exactly what she needed. Shining Soul was a whole new paradigm. She needed to put as much into Sturdiness as possible! She needed to be the tankiest of tankest looking player. She’d always planned to get proper mage robes someday, but now? Nah! Why bother with robes that gave a straight boost to energy when she could go for heavy armor that boosted health and energy at the same time?

Why hadn’t more mages done this? It had to have some secret drawback. It couldn’t possibly be this easy to game the system.

Then again… she’d gotten trickster at character creation, so clearly the system wasn’t as seamless as it ought to be. Maybe she should just take the win.

Sure, her previous stat allocations would slow her down. She’d be at barely 200 hp for a while until she had enough new levels to overcome the former decisions. But who cared about that! 450 energy. That was over double what she’d ever had before, even with Shadow’s arena gear. She could cast Heart of Magma for longer than a second now despite its insane casting cost. 100 up front, four second chargeup, then 50 energy per magma orb, one per second, and each orb did 55 damage…

If she used all her energy, she could do over 400 damage in eleven seconds.

She still wouldn’t be able to take on boss monsters solo, the game did have some balance. But from here on, she’d only get stronger. Who needed Path of Life? Nerfing her energy from day 1 had been a terrible mistake. Getting out from under that might prove to be one of the best things ever to happen for her build.

Maya laughed loud and exultant, drawing odd looks from the specialization tutors, but she didn’t care.

Finally, finally, she was a properly dangerous mage.

Character Maya Starborn Average Androgynous Harpy Mask: Mage Stader Affinities: Magical Physical Level: 14 Classes: Trickster None Tier: 5 Specialization: Shining Soul Augmentation: None Resistance: None Total Base Items Modifiers Sturdiness: 98 16 74 8 Momentum: 39 15 1 23 Agility: 100 8 79 13 Control: 29 8 13 8 Attunement: 63 18 40 5 Focus: 35 8 22 5 Intelligence: 41 27 4 10 Flexibility: 15 8 2 5 Luck: 10 30 - -20 Unassigned: 0 Health: 206 of 206 Will: 48 of 48 Stamina: 357 of 357 Energy: 457 of 457 Speed: 318% Switch penalty: -31%, 8.1 secs Stealth: 381% Chain bonus: +13% Awareness: 225% Cooldown: 92.5% Max abilities: 12 Equipment Item Name Slot Stu Mom Agi Con Att Foc Int Flx Midnight Armor of Agility Body 66 Iron Plate Leggings Legs 18 Dagger of the Devout Held 1 25 Dagger of the Devout Held 2 25 Iron Plate Helm Head 18 Drile Fur Cape Shoulders 3 2 6 Drile Fur Gauntlets Hands 4 2 1 Rogue's Belt Belt 2 2 1 Drile Fur Boots Feet 4 5 Lesser Bracelet of Control Arm 1 4 Survivor's Bracelet Arm 2 1 1 1 Goblin Necklace Necklace 2 1 Acrobat's Ring Ring 1 2 1 1 Dancer's Ring Ring 2 1 1 Cheap Ring of Sturdiness Ring 3 1 Greater Ring of Focus Ring 4 16 Minor Mage's Token Misc 1 2 1 Athlete's Talisman Misc 2 7 7 Minor Token of Focus Misc 3 1 Misc 4 Trickster's Mask Special