After eliminating the orc patrol the Misfits made their way deeper into the cave system. Deathberry continued marking up his map, being sure to correctly detail certain features along the way to ensure that they would be able to make their way out of the caves once they’d located the villagers that had been captured. So far, they hadn’t encountered any of the skitterers described by Seth, the child who had escaped.

Deathberry could tell that the Misfits were working well as a team together once again. So much had happened to the group in the past few weeks with the world changing and the loss of two of their guildmates that for a while it didn’t seem like they would ever get their old groove back. But some time on the island helped heal some of their wounds, although doubtlessly some wounds would never be forgotten.

Good team work and the discovery of a few leveling hacks boosted the Misfits into the low-level fifties; however, Deathberry knew that leveling was going to be slow from here. That was the way that levelling worked in most games and AO was no different. When Cheezus had discovered Detect Enemy Weakness that had been a huge advantage for them, but with the monsters becoming much more intelligent and capable, they were going to need every edge they could get. Since Miles learned a general ability that was outside the normal range of a rogue’s specific ability set, Deathberry wondered if he would be able to find and pick up spells that were also general in nature. One of the things he really liked about his class was that it was extremely effective against creatures of the light; however, since a lot of enemies that they encountered were not creatures of the light, this limited his offensive abilities. Adding a general spell ability could offset his limitations and possibly provide some utility as well.

Up ahead, Cheezus signaled for the group to slow up. Apparently, he found something in the cave system in front of them. He disappeared for a few minutes. Deathberry was just going to suggest that they go after him in case something had happened when he reappeared a sly grin on his face.

“There were two orc sentries guarding the villagers but I took care of them. Let’s go rescue some village children,” Cheezus said. Deathberry thought it was odd that the orcs would have left their encampment with such light defenses. He looked meaningfully at Cheezus.

“You think it’s weird too that there were only two of them?” he said. Several of the party members nodded.

Sean spoke up, “Let’s post a watch while we free the children. Also, let’s not dally here longer than we have to.” Everyone agreed that was a good idea.

The Misfits set to work freeing the children. The children struggled to remain quiet because they were ecstatic that they weren’t going to become orc food. Soon, the Misfits freed all the children from their cages. The kids were a sad looking bunch in dirty clothes. It was clear that they hadn’t been fed much, if at all. As they were being rescued, one girl tugged on Deathberry’s arm, “Where is my sister? Can you help me find her?” she said. Considering that the orcs had likely been keeping the children here as food for their tribe it was highly likely that the little girl’s sister had been eaten. “For now, let’s get you and the other children out of here. I’ll come back and look for your sister when you are safe,” Deathberry said.

The girl looked at him with haunted eyes, “You promise?”

“Promise.” Looking around at the faces of his guildies, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be a difficult sell to get them to come back to clear out the rest of the cave.

She nodded and the Misfits led the children back through the maze of cave passages back into the jungle, following Deathberry’s carefully annotated notes. They didn’t find any additional orcs nor did they have any encounters with the skittering ones. Certainly, they had achieved their objective; however, it felt hollow knowing that there were probably a lot of orcs left and they would just repeat the process. Unfortunately, they hadn’t seen any sign of the portals that Seth indicated existed there. That alone would be adequate justification for returning.

After successfully returning the villager’s children and receiving their quest reward, the Misfits returned to the caves. This time they followed Deathberry’s notes but looked for branching passages that they hadn’t had the time to explore last time. They found two other patrols of orcs while exploring the cave and this time were better prepared for what to expect. As Deathberry had suspected, each time they encountered creatures in this world the AI of the game seemed to give them another edge; however, the Misfits were starting to use the more sophisticated raid coordination they’d used back in Champions. Thus far, they had managed to stay ahead of the AI and not die. They all knew it was only going to get more difficult and Deathberry suspected they were all going to have start exploring general abilities soon if they were going to survive. While they were walking through the caves, he asked Cheezus more about how he’d discovered his general skill: Detect Enemy Weakness.

“As you may recall we were fighting the trolls back in that encampment in the mountains. Things were looking really bad for the group and I knew that if we didn’t pull something out of the hat it would be the end. I just started looking at the situation really thoroughly and tried to stay calm. There had to be a way to win and I was going to find it. That was when I just started noticing things about the trolls that I couldn’t have known previously, and then afterwards I was awarded the general skill in my combat log,” Cheezus explained.

It seemed like pressure was one of the prerequisites to gaining a new ability and that possibly their Gears and the AI worked together to find some sort of solution. Deathberry had been under a reasonable amount of pressure in the past several fights and so had the rest of the Misfits. So there had to be something more to it than just needing it to happen. Perhaps Cheezus was able to activate this ability since it was something he had been able to turn on from outside the game when he was just a player. After all, it wasn’t uncommon for players to develop their own set of skills completely outside the game but that affected their game play. It was possible that this general skill fell into that category. This was essentially just metagaming. How could Deathberry activate something similar with spell casting? What did he know from outside the game that could be applied inside?

They came upon their first skitterer as he was deep in thought. They must have surprised each other because Cheezus had been caught completely unaware until the creature had noticed him and by the startled reaction of the skitterer indicated that the surprise was mutual. Deathberry assessed the creature carefully as Smashit, Thag and the rest of the Misfits fell into position. It didn’t look like it had any other friends with it which was a good thing. It towered above the Misfits, it’s alien face and powerful armored body marking it as a worth adversary. Deathberry noted that the creature was level 52, which wasn’t much higher than their own level. Thank goodness for small breaks, he thought.

While the rest of the guild attacked, Deathberry only cast a few assistance spells and an occasional offensive spell. He wanted to really take the time to review what he knew about this creature and how they might better fight their kind in the future. From what they’d heard from Seth, a portion of the cave system was infested with these armored praying mantis type creatures and they needed to find an edge. Just one of them was holding the Misfits at bay fairly easily, although none of his companions had been hurt yet either.

As he watched, Deathberry noted how the creature fought and he came to the realization that it was nearly blind. While that was helpful to know, Deathberry didn’t really have any spells that affected sound. He wondered if he could modify one of his unholy spells to affect the way that sound worked around the creature. Most likely, it was like a bat and used echo location to detect its enemy’s movements. Knowing that, if he could alter his spells like silence to instead make a new sound within a certain area, he might distract the skitterer. Aha, he thought, making a change to the invocation like so might just do the trick. It was worth a shot. He cast the spell in front of the creature and all of a sudden sound in the room started echoing in strange ways and Deathberry could hear the sounds of Smashit’s sword like it was right next to him.

***You have learned a new General Skill: Alter Spell Effect***

After they had finished off the skitterer, Deathberry explained what he’d been able to do with his new ability to the group.

“First ability modification and now spell modification. It seems like AO has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. I wonder what other abilities we’ve taken for granted that can now be changed?” Sean asked.

Deathberry nodded. “Yes, I’m also wondering how that may affect our enemies. If we can alter ourselves it stands to reason that we can expect that they may be able to as well. Nonetheless, I think we should all start thinking about different ways we can modify what we are already doing. One of the things I noticed after talking with Cheezus was that it wasn’t just that there was great need – it has to be something you have some metaknowledge of. For example, with the Unholy Sound spell I just cast, I knew that it was likely that the creature was fighting us using echo location. And I started with my silence spell and simply changed one effect – instead of casting a spell that removes sound I cast one that makes the sound. Both are spells that modify an existing area and both modify one of our senses of perception. Because these spells are relatively the same is why I was able to make the altered spell,” Deathberry explained.

With Deathberry’s altered spell effect, the Misfits continued through the cave and made quick work of the remaining skitterers. For now, the raid had hacked a way to making things easy mode and they took advantage of it by quickly clearing the dungeon and leveling up. Deathberry appreciated his handiwork but knew that this was no time to get complacent. He suspected that AO was already adapting to their workaround and the next set of monsters they encountered would be that much more difficult.

Finally, they came to the area where Seth had described there being four multi-colored portals. The room looked exactly as the village boy had described it. A few rooms ago, the skitterers had cleared out before the Misfits even got there. Perhaps they had a way of communicating with each other that was similar to the guild’s raid chat or perhaps they were mentally linked. Cheezus quickly found the treasure which was hidden behind a rock outcropping within the room. There were several items of interest: a golden set of plate armor that Smashit and Thag decided upon by playing rock-paper-scissors, and a staff that looked perfect for a druid. There were odd and sundry trinkets as well. Deathberry picked up a fidget spinner that must have fascinated the skitterers. It was a relic from his father’s childhood. Deathberry had never seen one in person but he’d seen enough pictures online to know it would be a nice keepsake.

Deathberry sat back and considered how they were going to test the portals. The problem was that he had no idea where they went and it was quite possible that just like Seth they would end up in a random field somewhere with no way to get back. However, as he investigated the portals further he could just make out a blurry image of what was on the other side: the first portal looked like the one that Seth had taken; the second looked like somewhere in the mountains and there was a blizzard blowing outside; in the third portal was a beach town that looked like pictures that he’d seen of Thailand when he’d been considering a vacation a year ago; finally, there was a portal where the image on the other side was the Bay Bridge. It looked dilapidated, like it had sat rusting there for another hundred years. What had happened to it? Did the rest of California look that way?

Deathberry nodded to the guild, “Looks like we’ve found our way to San Francisco.”