Patch 17 (Realm of Arkon) (10 page)

With his shields already exhausted, he set into the final movement of the dance—hurling a pair of Windblades at the two demons that had appeared to his right, he focused all his remaining strength on the Ice Spear at the one who'd managed to block the blade. The last accord sounded, the music faded, and her tear-stained face appeared before his eyes.

"I did it, sweetheart! Why are you crying?"

Several moments later, four demons stood over a body prostrated on the rocks. Clutching his wounded shoulder, pierced by an ice spear, General Saad Khor contemplated dourly the golden glyphs on the chest of Erantia's dead archmage.

***

I sat perfectly still, transfixed by the vision. The roaring flames, the peals of thunder and sundering rock—all this was gradually receding, yielding to the music of savanna at night.

You've completed the quest, Duty Calls, Part I.

You have gained a level! Current level: 2.

Racial bonus: +1% to resistance to dark magic, +1% resistance to light magic.

Class bonus: +1 to intellect; +1 to spirit.

You have 3 stat points to allocate.

You have gained a level!

…

You have gained a level!

…

You have gained a level! Current level: 10.

You have 1 talent point to allocate.

Racial bonus: +1% to resistance to dark magic, +1% resistance to light magic.

Class bonus: +1 to intellect; +1 to spirit.

You have 27 stat points to allocate.
             

Your character can now choose a specialization.

You have gained a level! Current level: 11.

You have 2 talent points to allocate.

Racial bonus: +1% to resistance to dark magic, +1% resistance to light magic.

Class bonus: +1 to intellect; +1 to spirit.

You have 30 stat points to allocate.

Logic would dictate that a quest this high level should have netted me heaps more experience—enough for level 30 or thereabouts, so it must have triggered the hidden "fairness" coefficient that the devs had introduced to counter powerleveling. We also called it the "fartness" coefficient. If memory served me right, prior to the latest patch players were allowed to accept quests up to 20 levels above their character's level. The exception to this were unique quests. The fact that I had been given a quest by a level 500 NPC could only be explained by a quirk courtesy of RP-17, which had mentioned something about a bump in the game's NPCs' intellect.

Having a friend in the game who was, say, level 100, you could easily accept a bunch of maximum-level quests and knock them out with ease by working in a group. Which would bring you to the same level 100 much, much faster. Or your friend could simply pull a high-level mob while not being grouped with you, and keep aggro while you hacked away at the mob pitifully until it died and you got the experience for its death. This was the reason the fairness coefficient was introduced. To be sure, completing a quest 20 levels higher would certainly net more experience than a same-level quest, but the multiplier was capped at around 1.5 as compared to hundreds—the way it was before the coefficient. The same applied to killing high-level mobs. Of course, players continued looking for (and finding) various loopholes, but those were typically closed fairly quickly by the administration, which aggressively propagated fair gaming. And it wasn't hard to track unusual jumps in levels of certain characters.

No matter—all great things must begin with the first step. While Altus waited for me to catch my breath and recover from the vision, I quickly opened my character menu. And, without a moment's hesitation, selected mage. I never was drawn to necromancers, and especially not after what I'd seen. To always travel with a retinue of rotting corpses and other filth that reeked as much as you'd expect—find yourself another sucker! The priest class was always in demand for its excellent healing and buffing abilities, but completely lacking in the damage department and hence not very attractive to me. Most players wanted to burn burn burn, so only people of a particular ilk played support classes. I was not among them.

Congratulations on your selection, apprentice. This marks the beginning of your path to master the power of the elements. Only you will determine where it will take you.

You've gained the rank of mage's apprentice. You can raise in rank by enrolling in one of Arkon's schools of magic.

There was no going back now—I was a mage. Now, to allocate stats... the logical strategy was to throw something into intellect, but with my hit points and energy, logic could go screw itself! I added 20 to constitution and 10 to vigor. Talents I left for later.

"What do I need to do, monsieur?" I asked the archmage sitting across from me. After seeing and experiencing his vision, I didn't want to relate to him as a ghost.

"Setara, the Goddess of Justice, has hearkened to my request, giving me a hero who will rescue my people and the knights of the order. That there," he gestured at the rock formation, "has been my grave for the past two hundred and eighty years. The demons haven't been able to recover the signet ring enchanted with the Key to the vault. It cannot be looted off the corpse or stolen, but only given away freely. I cannot move too far from my remains—this was the goddess' condition. Only when the signet ring is in safe hands will I finally find rest," he explained.

You've accessed the quest: Duty Calls II.

Quest type: hidden.

Kill Shaartakh and loot the Champion of the Order of the Red Flame's Signet Ring from Archmage Altus' corpse.

Reward: experience, unknown. Warning! To complete this quest you will need at least 100 allies.

I let out a mental groan. Why does it always happen that when things finally start looking up, something comes along and smacks you back down to reality?! Where was I going to find one hundred level 170+ players?! Even in Karn I'd be hard-pressed to gather enough volunteers. I could just imagine what was going on there—the panic, people in shock and hardly thinking about raiding. It would take months for tanks to grind their toughness high enough to raid, to say nothing of the other classes. There weren't many masochists capable of enduring even ten minutes of genuine pain.

"Monsieur," I said, accepting the quest, "what is this creature you call Shaartakh?"

"When Velial departed from this plane, not all of his creatures followed. Some of them remained here. Demons have thinned their numbers considerably since, but some specimen still live. Those that are particularly powerful and loathsome," Altus scrunched up his face, gazing toward the mountains. "There was a great emission of power during the battle in the gorge. That was how he appeared... Well, what are your thoughts?"

I patted my non-existing pockets automatically—a Pavlovian response to my nicotine cravings. Realizing the futility of it, I locked my arms to keep them from causing mischief.

"My thoughts are focused on capturing power in this dominion," I shrugged and, seeing that Altus was staring at me as though I were a halfwit, continued. "Don't misunderstand me, monsieur. I would love to help you find peace and to reunite you with your beloved," I cut right to the quick, "but I stand no chance against Shaartakh on my own... Heck, I couldn't even handle a gopher," I looked around in search of at least one of those rodents, as if they could confirm my words. "And where would I find the people—or even demons—to help me in this quest? Karn is closed to me, just as it is to you."

"You're going to go far with those smarts," Altus chuckled. "Setara never did forbid me from lending a hand..." The archmage stood up resolutely, whisking up his staff.

Archmage Altus invites you to join his group.

Whoa! Last I checked, NPCs didn't have the ability to form groups, or was I missing something? I accepted without thinking twice and jumped off the chair, trying to look as eager as possible. Altus checked out my getup skeptically; then, without lowering his staff, brought his hands together and jerked them upward. A warm wave swept over my body. I glanced at the logs and froze, flabbergasted.

You are endowed with Archmage Altus' Blessing. Duration: 120 minutes.

Agility: +500.

Strength: +500.

Constitution: +500.

Vigor: + 500.

Spirit: +500.

Intellect: +500.

It was like I'd gulped down five liters of some energy drink or snorted some kind of super junk.

"That's more like it," the archmage grunted. "Now quit standing there like a statue and follow me." With those words, he stepped into the blue oval of a portal he'd opened a moment earlier, motioning for me to follow.

I recognized the gorge where Archmage Altus had made his last stand right away. The scatterings of rocks and boulders were all there, only the pine trees and the brush had been replaced by a strange brown moss crawling along the molten hillsides. Catching my eyes, Altus explained:

"The demons were mainly using area of effect spells. It will be a while before anything will be able to grow here. There," he pointed toward a large brownish boulder about a hundred yards from where we stood, "is where my bones lie. Make sure to stay back and not draw aggro. And another thing," he sighed, "upon attacking Shaartakh, I will become vulnerable. If I don't manage to kill him," he said, peering intently at me, "you're going to have to come back here later. Promise me this."

"I promise, monsieur," I put my balled right fist to my heart automatically—clearly, I was growing into the role—then nodded and added, "even if I have to make this entire land my bitch."

The archmage nodded and started forward.

I continued standing there, swerving my head around in search of Shaartakh, when the large pile of rocks in Altus' path began to move, which made my hair stand on end. Whatever depths of computer imagination this creature had crawled out of, I was beyond certain that artists like me had nothing at all to do with it. The monster looked like the embodiment of the collective nightmares of patients in some mental ward, and a large one at that. Colossal, the size of a rock handler, with a gray mass of tentacles and queer dark tumors, the monster resembled some kind of terrible mix of caterpillar and octopus. Mother of God! Level 473!!! Shaartakh lifted his foreparts off the ground slowly, and soon the monster was was boring the archmage, who'd stopped roughly a hundred feet away, with its three yellow eyes.

A ripple went through Altus' limpid figure. The archmage threw his arms back and sideways, and, as if a great weight had landed on him, began slowly raising them upward. That was when I glimpsed the transparent vortexes of power streaming from his bones. When Altus' hands reached their apex, the mage cried out something, and a lightning bolt of gigantic proportions struck at the beast with a deafening rumble. The monster's health bar dropped by a whole quarter. With a wild, bloodcurdling yelp, the beast pounced on Altus.

I felt my insides twist into a knot, and the world went dark in my eyes. It was like somebody were trying to drill into my head through my ear canal. I clutched my ears with my hands, but it was no use. Seeing blood flowing from my ears and running down my wrists, I swore with gusto.

Shaartakh's Primal Howl hits you with mental magic for 20 damage! 5190/5210.

Shaartakh's Primal Howl hits you with mental magic for 20 damage! 5170/5210.

…

Shaartakh's Primal Howl hits you with mental magic for 20 damage! 4170/5210.

Your Toughness skill has increased to 32%.

A hundred yards in front of me, the great mage Kyam Altus was working wonders of the art of sorcery. Surrounded by damage-dealing auras of all the colors of the rainbow, the wailing Shaartakh kept trying to snare the mage with its tentacles, but each attempt ended with triggering a trap, which stunned the beast for several seconds and sent yet another barrage of ice blocks and lightning bolts crashing down on it. At half life, the monster split into three giant cactus-like shapes with trunks in place of branches, and attacked the mage with whitish streaks of power.

Shaartakh's Primal Howl hits you with mental magic for 20 damage! 1150/5210.

Your Toughness skill has increased to 33%.

The AoE damage
hit every two seconds. I had no more than two minutes left to live, and that was considering my racial bonus absorbed three quarters of all incoming mental damage. Then six hours at the graveyard... But if I went out of range, I wouldn't get the credit for the quest. What to do?!

It turned out I didn't need to do anything, as the end came quicker than I could anticipate. In the third phase of the fight, having rejoined all its parts into one whole, Shaartakh swung and missed again. The archmage countered, quick as lightning, by immobilizing his target, then finished off the monster with a boulder overhanging the gorge and a pair of ice blocks.