So I'm in the caslte with my awesome reputation boost and decent CHA and the vampires are just treating me like I'm strolling through a human village. Since only high level vampires know about the kidnapped Mages Guild member I'm actually Neutral with the grunts by default and then + 1 to Cordial or w/e from my Ability. It may seem like I'm not doing to do a lot of fighting. Wrong. I don't marry the vampire girl, and remember early VRMMOs didn't even have sex or other tactile options anyways, but I do dive right into the politics.

I speak to some vampire mages and impress them with my spells. A fancy looking vampire comes up while we chat and I talk to him. He does know about the kidnapped mage, and what the master wants him for, so we are only neutral. However he has a negative opinion of the master and I have Persuasive. He takes me to a secluded but not scarily isolated hallway and asks if I'm here about the mage and how we found out. Persuasive lets me play more knowledgeable than I am and my CHA is decent. Nothing like my INT but my stats over overleveled from items most level 8 players don't have.

I convince him that I am not an anti-vampire fanatic like the leadership of the mages guild and I tell him I haven't reported my findings from the Wizard's Tower. A combination of Persuasive and good CHA and he takes my to a meeting with some other vampire nobility. Now as I mentioned the Vampire Duchess was planning a coup against the Master but she wasn't the only one. Several Vampire factions were sort of loosely hostile towards each other. This was one of the other ones. In the intened scenario where I became the dark lord she and I triumphed over the fractured Vampire factions.

Basically the same thing happens this time but I support a different faction and we win. I kill a lot of vampires and werewolves which I'll provide combat logs for the highlights of. Then I walk out with the old Mage, who has been in a magical sleep and doesn't know what happened, make up a story and not only get the max quest rewards but bonus vampire rewards. Not that I wouldn't have enjoyed being a dark lord but at the time I was actually on the quest I didn't know that was an option so I was pretty hyped about my results. I thought I was the smartest most elite fucker around. And I was in NCDOT, so you know I was already pretty elite.

So we have the meeting and I max out the use of my special dialogue and bonus reputation. Neutral is a big leg up on Suspicious. They tell me what they know. The mage is going to be tortured for his magical knowledge and then the master will sacrifice him to some monster under the castle and they'll go on a killing spree or something. Basically the Master would be the dark lord instead of me. One reason the Vampire girl made a deal with me was cause she hated his guts I guess.

So the plot goes off. Various Vampire factions support or oppose the master, some wait to see who starts to win. These dudes are basically human nobles who don't have to buy as much make up. I party up with my vamp bros and we go kill shit. About 10000EXP overall after experience split. Then I break up with them for a secret mission. Yeah, they betrayed me by sending me into a trap. Jokes on them, I take down two Vampire mages all alone. I'm a High Human not a Human you fools!

Dark Vampire Mage Level 20 EXP 4000

HP 1000

STR 40 DEX 80 CON 100

INT 100 WIS 40

Skills: Dark Magic | Blood Magic

Typing: +150% fire damage | +50% disease damage | +100% bleeding damage

I ignored their resistance since I just won't cast that. So Dark Vampires take type and race based fire damage. Nice. I got lucky here. It was an ambush but they didn't know what I could do so instead of just blasting me they started casting buff and control spells. Hah, I'm way better at that than they are.

I cast Quicken, then Boost, then dual Stagnation. 4 seconds. Meanwhile all they get to cast is Night, which boosts Dark damage, Haemophilia which boosts Bleeding damage and Mage Armor. Hah, I don't do physical damage anyways. Now their INT is strong which means no saves for me but their WIS is weak which means no saves for them. Also I have a Bleeding spell so they boosted my damage too lol. Well if I go that way. Slow is reverse Haste so they add Cast 1s to all spell casting times. I meanwhile lower the cost, to a minimum of 1 of course.

I have two options. Go straight damage or go for Miasma. I have good Disease spells that chain into a high damage Blood spell. But I also have very strong fire burst damage and Pyromania. I go with fire. I'm iffy about waiting out DoT timers since I can't use my usual damage avoidance.

Boost, Pyromania. Clingfire. Clingfire does 45+19*2.05 Burst * 2.5x from damage typing. So 328 damage to both of them plus the dot. That's another 154 each over 6 seconds. Sweet. These guys are basically down to half. They move towards me to get in range for attacks meaning they have one second left on their cast times because of stagnation. I Worldstep across the room. Now I'm out of range. Woops, their spells cancel. I don't have anywhere else to go but it was enough. They have to approach me under stagnation and then start to cast again. I have nowhere to run now but I do have 4 seconds of spell casting. I'm out of Lockdown range but Pyromania boosts fire magic range. I cast Boost, then Twin. Then I cast 2 Firebolts. Boosted and Twinned. That's 80+19 * 2.05 * 2.5x for 500 damage. 4 Firebolts and 2 enemies. Basically I realized I didn't actually neeed Clingfire, woops.

4000 * 1.8 * 2 = 14400 EXP

Woohoo, 1/4 of the way to level 9 when I was already 1/4 of the way there. 1/2! Those Miasma spells won't be super helpful since they don't have type bonuses on vampires but what can you do?

I hook back up with my Vampire bros as though I didn't realize it was a trap and play it off with Persuasive and CHA. Boom. An actual legitimate level of Reputation with these vampires. Should my faction win I'll have it with all Vampires around the kingdom of Arnor. Lame ass name but its in the public domain at legally at this point I guess. So yeah my guys don't try to backstab me again they continue the fight to put their man into the seat of the Master.

I'm blasting Miasma spells everywhere and especially my bleeding and disease spells. While I didn't take the 3 options I had for becoming a good buffbot my control and buff spells are still decent so I spend my time actually using Tarnishing for stat damage in combo with my Miasma spells. I cast a few Tier 1 spells but I keep Gravity and Metamagic to myself so the vampires don't get too interested and also in case I need some surprises later. I did not.

+~40000exp (61200/51200) (10000/102400) Lvl Up!!!

You have gained 10HP, 46MP, and 2 stat points!

You have gained 2 skill points + 1 magic point + 2 Ability Points!

I get to level 10 pretty quick. Even though its experience share from the party these enemies are all way higher level. I take MEM and grab Blight, Putrefy, and Taint. Blight applies negative 20% damage mitigation which either clears enemy mitigation or just adds 20% to my damage. I do still want to grab Poison and Putrefy though.

Now I get to pick 2 abilities. I grabbed Skilled for faster use based growth and Linguist for better Reputation and Dialogue options. I take this in preparation for going to Sarantium. By teleporter. However it pays off earlier than that. Before we talk about why, the Isolationist faction of the Vampires, that's my boys, heads off to kill the king. We do not miss. This battle log would be insane so I'm not going to reproduce it here. He's got a few loyal guards on his side but most of his supporters are dead or fled from fighting other factions.

+60000 EXP

Not bad considering share was on. Now my Vampire buddies love me from my Rep boost, owe me their lives, and are kinda scared of me. Not like Master scared but not bad. I tell the new Master I'm taking my Mages Guild buddy and bouncing. They hand him over and bless me with 5 stat points and 4 skill points and 3 ability points. Nice. This is rare early on and at level 10? Not bad. Stats to MEM. I really overloaded INT and MEM. Boosting CON and WIS and CHA a bit would have done a lot for me but I am a mage.

Even CHA to combine with my special social abilities would have been iffy. Who knows whether it would pay off. Now obviously I pick up the rest of Miasma Phase 2. But then I save my 2 skill points and 3 ability points. I looked at getting Arcana and Historian or Geographer but I was thinking about whether I'd have more options soon and none of those would immediately benefit me in my efforts to return to the Mages Guild and move on to the capital.

I head out to pick up my Mage quest target and I'm headed to the infirmary when I beat a perception check. I'm really glad I took Perception now and have high INT and decent WIS. A female vampire. Boy I wonder who that could be. With my new high Vamp rep I walk up to her and she curses in a foreign tongue. Ah but I'm a Linguist. I pass some check for a bonus dialogue option and she begs me not to out her and to help her leave. She promises to reward me if I get her to the capital. Now there's no snogging so her suggestive posture doesn't do much for me even if she is gorgeous. Tactile effects were not possible back then but the VR graphics were still pretty much lifelike.

I have a tough decision to make. If I out her and help my buddies take her down I'm probably smashing right to level 11 and maybe hitting level 12 when I turn in my quest. On the other hand who knows what a high level Vampire noble could do for me in the capital. Of course at this point I don't know we almost ruled the nation together under and endless night so I am sort of underestimating her significance. I decide to help her and get her to the capital. I'm pretty interested in how hidden dialogues go since I currently believe I just got an awesome bonus from one recently. After all how was I going to rescue that mage myself?

I head down and grab my Guild member. This guy is old as fuck. I think he must be like the oldest mage on the whole continent. He says its been 247 years. I am not correct. We journey back to Atria with the vampire trailing us. We go to the mages guild and I take the guy in. Woohoo, quest complete. No hot vampire sex though.

+102400exp (112400/102400) (10000/204800) Lvl Up!!!

You have gained 10HP, 46MP, and 2 stat points!

You have gained 2 skill points + 1 magic point

I'm level 11 and I've got 5 skill points and 3 open slots for skills. I take 2 MEM. I do not spend the skill points. I have 2 Ability points also. My going wide strategy skill point wise was not ideal. When I talked to other min-maxers after the beta I saw a lot of improvements I could have made. Firstly I could have Phase changed faster and secondly I could have spent skill points on skill levels. That would have freed me to spend stats on something besides MEM. Ah well. My MEM was 38 at this point with INT at 46. Nothing else was really close.

I got another special dialogue from my Quest target giving me a special enchanted crystal for saving him. Not that he knew what had happened to him. I was also sitting on 40 gold from quests rewards and item sales. My staff was enchanted with +10 Wisdom and +10 INT because I achieved Master rank in the Guild. So that was cool.

In any case I headed off to the teleporter that night with my Vampire companian in tow and we arrived in the capital. She gave me some contact info and another enchanted crystal and told me to look her up when I was level 15. Kinda wish I killed her. 4 more levels and no idea what the reward is? Lame.

I headed over to the Mages Guild right away. I wanted to see what trainers they had, if there were good items, and to make use of my first contact crystal. I talked to the Registrar and he told me that the Mage I saved had been an Apprentive of Eegoh The Esoteric. Yeah. "Ego" was the name of this dude. Also, if the first guy was his apprentice how old was this freak. Okay, crazy name and magically significant title, old as fuck. I immediately went off to find this guy. If he was in a quest chain or something I was gonna get a big score. I was sure. I was right.

This is where I get my first Legendary Template. Not as awesome as Unique but realistically, bagging a second Unique Template that synergized with my character build this early was too much to ask for. I asked around the guild and finally got directed to the highest room, in the second tallest tower, of the capital city Mages Guild. I'd later learn the tallest tower was for the Archmage, leader of the guild in the kingdom. He wasn't that cool. No secret templates from him.

Anyhow I hit the room and the guy tells me he sensed my crystal and the door opens up. He's a wizard's wizard, but not sort of imperious like Gandalf or pompous like Cadsuane or anything. The kind of guy who has a title like Esoteric. Wild hair and beard, thick and augmented and enchanted glass and shit.

He's a magical researcher who deals with Arcana, other dimensions and planes and shit like that. I saved his favorite Apprentice and he was also impressed with how I handled the vampire situation. Look, he had truthspells and stuff. This wasn't some provincial wizard like the ones in Atria. He was one of those only cares about knowledge and not politics dudes.

I tell him I want to learn something besides combat magic and reveal one or two of my special Talents though not my High Human status. We talk about magical theory and so forth. Turns out I could have gotten some extra benefits from being a Historian or Geographer here but Linguist and Skilled and Enigmatic counted for something. Also Charismatic and Persuasive. I think this guy was set to provide this template or some similar template to a character that was more of a bard/archivist type. Basically giving them some combat skills but also boosting their knowledge skills. For me it was sort of the reverse.

In any case he spends a few crazy nights casting magic buff spells and shit and gets me started on the path of Knowledge and so forth. I gain one free point from his efforts. I get a special template of the Intellect Archetype called Primordialist. Its a pretty nice synergy for me. It deals with magic, knowledge, and some skills beneficial to rogue and bards.

One of the major benefits of multi-classing to a new high tier Template with a common superclass is free points. Every new high class Template that has something in common with your old one provides two points that can connect with any template in its superclass for abilities or Talents. Think of it sort of like an alignment? So Intellect is an intersection between magic and crafting and artistry. Bards and Rogues are artistry classes. Rangers are adjacent to artistry but not intellect.

In any case 3 free points. Not bad. Sadly getting bonus free points is not super common. And a lot of times you might spend a free point on the Template that produced it anyways. So they aren't as overpowered as they first appear. However in the release version they nerfed extraordinary classes. Basic classes get no free points while uncommon classes get 1 one. In release Extraordinary went from 2 to 1 as well.