Lucia the Bard

Chapter 3

Elcatrin reached behind her chair where several brightly colored bags were located, including some that looked like they included musical instruments. Mostly they looked like them’s personal bags.

“Here it is,” they said as they pulled a bag out from the others. “Come on up and pick one.”

“What are they again,” asked Lucia.

“Well, my dear, though you gave it a good try, your woodwind playing is only sufficient to bring out a few cantrips. Also, you aren’t going to get many coins busking in the square with it and are a long way from being invited into a noble house to play,” said Milesmith. “In fairness few level 1 bards are up too much of that either. However, we see a lot of potential in your future as a Bard.”

“We are admittedly holding you to a bit of a higher standard than some,” added Matriam. “We do some background checks on those who already have built a reputation in this city. While you have a few limitations in a few areas as a rogue, you are already known for your acting abilities as a confidence artist. At least I appreciate this is usually employed against those who deserve it. This acting would role in nicely as a bard. As a dungeon conquering rogue and fighter you are known to bring a skill and fluidity to the role that few under level 15 can match. You usually out damage your party’s mage and other damage dealers except in certain circumstances where mobs are strong against melee damage. In fact, you’re lucky that you have a good tank. In many parties you would draw more hate than you could handle. I say all this, not just to demonstrate that we have done some homework but to show that you didn’t do your own well enough. Like Elcatrin said, you would likely have little difficulty in a test of dance and I also believe that you could have passed if we had set up an acting scenario.”

“So, we don’t want to fail you Lucia, but to pass you need to pick one of these,” said Elcatrin, holding out a bag that seemed to be holding papers.

Lucia moved forward to the outstretched bag and reached in to pull out a paper.

Beguile the Rat King-

The Rat King is better tuned into the happenings of the city than most who dwell above ground. Make him an Ally.

Reward- Level 1 Bard Class, one level one Bard Spell and 2 Bard Cantrips.

The quest seemed fairly straight forward in some ways and abnormal in others. Taking on the Rat King was a well-known quest for parties below level 3. Lucia herself had done it at one point early on, well before she had joined her primary party, just as she was beginning to learn the way of the rogue. It was one of the instanced occurrences that new players could do and have some guidance from online forums.

In those quest, however, the players were meant to team up to take on and defeat the rat king. For some it was their first introduction to party play. This sounded like it was not only solo but had a very different clear condition.

In some ways she was not surprised. The completion and methods used by players in the early levels was meant to steer the AI into appropriate individual and party quests, usually starting in the 5-10 level range. It was how the AI knew that individually she would rather go after a cheat than an innocent person on individual quest lines and that her primary party was well rounded in wilderness and dungeon combat but, unlike Lucia individually, rarely did city or other role-play heavy scenarios.

This quest sounded like it would be minimal combat. Since her combat levels were very high for a class quest like this, that was likely by design.

“What else can you tell me about this one?” she asked.

“Well, you shouldn’t go in as the over-powered embodiment of spinning death you could be,” there was some real snark in Elcatrin’s tone. Seemed good natured though. “Look the Rat King isn’t evil, even though some view him that way. If you are to play the role that you seem to want to head towards, you are going to need sources for both information and quests outside the normal. Look at this as an opportunity.”

“Are there any conditions on kills?” Lucia wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting into.

“Rats and were-rats should be spared,” chimed in Milesmith. “All else you can take care of the way you would like. Should produce no problem. But talking the Rat King into becoming an ally is the quest clear condition for you.”

This time Lucia bowed instead of attempting a curtsy. “Thank you for giving me this chance to prove myself worthy of being considered a bard.”

_

Lucia was glad she didn’t actually have the advanced helmet that could reproduce smells. The sewers were supposedly rough on those who had them, not to mention the professional gamers and wealthy that could play in a pod. For all the advantages that could give, there were downsides as well.

There were entrances to the sewers all around the city. All but a few were instanced, meaning the AI reset their design for each new party or individual that came along. There were certain parameters they fell into, however. The entrance for the Rat King was back closer to where Lucia had started her play session at the Inn. If anything, the entrance was in an area that was even rougher than her home base tavern. Many a newbie player had found the area above ground here had more danger than the sewers themselves, especially to the loss of a purse or two.

Once more Lucia cut down substantially on the time needed by running. Fairly soon she found herself going into the correct sewer entrance.

Welcome Player

You have found an entrance to the sewers

Recommended level 1-4,

Recommended Party, 2-6

Proceed Cautiously!

The warning wasn’t for her, at least not the way it meant. She would need caution because she needed to figure out how this quest related to being a bard. Already she knew that meant the fighting would be at a minimum and a silver tongue would likely be needed.

Having foreseen this she had worn the two pieces of charisma enhancing gear she had; a chartreuse scarf that had +2 and a hairpin that was +3. At max level 25, many players found ways to have sets of equipment for each and every role they might need but she was still well short of that. She tended to only wear the scarf in the city because she also had a neckpiece that enhanced strength by +3. None of these pieces were anything like what you would get from completion of epic quests, but they were what she had.

When players started in Euphemia or any of the seven realms, they got to set their ability scores from a baseline. Everyone started with a 10 in every ability, strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. Lucia had taken human, which brought +2 ability points of her choice. Other races might have more, but they were predetermined and often also came with deficiencies for game balance. Then the class they first took had +2 that could be divided between certain abilities but not all. For Lucia, with rogue class, that had been dexterity and charisma. She had put +1 in each. Then for her racial bonus she had put one in strength and one in dexterity. Finally, you had the option to lower some scores to increase others. She took two from wisdom and added them to dexterity. Every four levels after that you received +3 distributable attributes for your class and +1 that could go anywhere. When she hit levels 5 and 9 in rogue she had put 2 in dexterity and 1 in charisma. The first time the extra point had gone to strength and the second time constitution. With fighter she had divided the first level bonus of two points between strength and constitution and the level 5 between strength, constitution, and dexterity, intelligence. Why intelligence if she didn’t cast anything. Well, it seemed that skills ranked up faster with higher intelligence, something that wasn’t discussed very much. Anyway, her character sheet looked like this.

Name

Class

Attributes

Score(w/items)

Lucia

Rogue 11

Strength

14(16)

Fighter 7

Dexterity

19(23)

HP

126

Constitution

13(14)

MP

99

Intelligence

11(11)

Wisdom

8(8)

Charisma

13(18)

Skills

Sword

23

Lock-pick

8

Dagger

19

Pick-pocket

2

Pole-arm

14

Back-stab

16

Whip

6

Slealth

19

Blunt Object

3

Disguise

15

Light Armor

9

Athletics

27

Unarmored

2

Acrobatics

24

She was especially proud of certain skill rankings because they reflected her real-world abilities combined with the skill advances that came with in game use. Athletics, acrobatics, and sword would have been considered reasonable on even max level players, although her attributes and HP would put her well away from being able to take them on. She had also received bonuses to pole-arm, dagger and stealth from real world testing.

One huge disadvantage to taking on the third class was that it would lower her HP and the MP. HP and MP were determined by the average of the classes that a player held. Right now, that was nine levels with rogue 11 and fighter at 7. Adding a third level 1 class would bring her down to 6, something the rest of her party was none to enthused about. With as much damage as she dealt out, she did take hate away from the tank occasionally and then take hits. This was reflected in how high her light armor score was. If she wasn’t careful she could easily be dealt a death blow.

That was a challenge for later though. Right now, she needed to concentrate.

The sewer wasn’t that bad really. There were pathways about four feet wide on each side of a stream in the middle. Periodic magic lamps gave it a dark hue, but it didn’t need any form of Dark vision to see well. This was a beginner area after all and only a few races would have dark vision at this level.

The stream looked like just that and she didn’t observe any bobbing solids like might be expected. One of the other 7 realms, Hereford, was a much more grimdark fantasy. Some characters actually started their careers there as rat catchers in sewers that made this one look like Disneyland. She didn’t care much for the dirt, blood and guts that were a part of play there, but she wouldn’t have minded some more exposure to rats.

Might as well get started.

She saw several common rats along the path ahead of her. These rats only provided any experience at all to players in the first couple of levels. She was so over leveled that nothing in here would give her any experience, including the Rat King. In addition to rats, she remembered slimes, and various low-level things that would crawl out of the stream. It was speculated the slimes were part of the self-cleaning aspect of the sewers because they seemed to digest refuse that was left behind.

Actually, the greatest dangers were that she would inadvertently hurt a rat or that she would cost her weapons some durability with the slimes. The slimes were notoriously slow however and few in here had a diameter of more than a few feet. Based on something Elcatrin had said she thought she might have an idea.

While acrobatics were a known skill, she had done RL testing to add even more parkour elements to her character’s ability within the skill. While anyone with the skill could tumble during combat or putting on a show in the square, she could wall run. It had taken a lot of RL training to get it cleared and it were much could be turned into a rough form of dance.

As Lucia began to move forward, her foot work began to take on the form of dance. To add to the effect, she had looked up rat related songs before coming in, and finding nothing that met the vibe she wanted, she decided to make up one of her own.

In the time of the Rat

They can go anywhere

Find out where the fat cats

Lie in wait

In the time of the Rat

Can be in the Kitchen of a queen

In chairs where the nobles last sat

And in secret where they mate

It was hardly award-winning verse but the rats that she came across began to follow her. Coming up to slimes, she would either leap over or use the wall to get around them. Scorpions received a good kick and she had to keep her eyes peeled for spiders, diving under attacks from above several times.

The sewer branched and she took the right-hand path. It was just the way to do it when the paths were randomized for each instance. Shortly she came to an end. A skeleton lay with a sword in its hands. This would be noob gear, but she picked it up anyway. Looking behind she discovered that she had picked up several hundred rats following her. This was a really dicey place if she didn’t want to hurt any, and yet they covered the entire sewer floor.

The solution was to climb the wall to her right and use it to inch over the group of rats below. Climbing was usually determined by acrobatics and athletics but again she had supplemented that by learning to climb in RL. She quickly climbed till she was a couple of feet above the rat hoard and inched her way over it before climbing down.

Now her dance became even more complex, and she needed to keep her speed high up to not have the rats catch up from behind. She wondered what a person with less athletics skill would do.

Selecting now the left-hand fork, she continued further, singing her song over and over. A couple hundred yards further came another branch, and she took right. Fairly soon she came to a cavern and knew that this quest was nearing its end.

To the far end of the room was a wooden chair that wouldn’t look out of place in a modest inn, but hardly looked regal. On it sat the one she remembered as the Rat King, a were-rat with mixed features that looked on in surprise as the singing woman entered his space with well over a thousand rats following. Roughly half a dozen other smaller were-rats protected the throne in a semi-circle in front of it.

“What is this singer?” lisped the King.

“I can actually take this one Harise,” Lucia heard from behind her.