1????????Soul Bound
1.3??????Making a Splash
1.3.2????An Allotropic Realignment
1.3.2.37 Omnia mutantur
Without thought she reached for her aura of power, planning to focus it upon Bungo as though he were an NPC, but then paused and remembered that she wanted to practice her new Rulership skills, not just her magic. She drew herself up, aiming for calm dignity.
Kafana: “Bungo, you are providing great service to myself and our cause, with the work you have taken on at my behest. And it gladdens my heart to see you and Alderney developing a positive working relationship based upon mutual respect. I understand that preserving surprise before a revelation can sometimes increase the pleasure of anticipation. Sometimes.”
She waited just until his mouth opened to speak, before continuing.
Kafana: “But business comes before pleasure, and it is my decision that in this case I would like you to kindly answer my question without further delay, please.”
She particularly liked the way she’d delivered the word “please”. It gave her words the form of a polite request, while doing nothing to reduce their impact. Bungo nodded and switched mindset, unconsciously responding to her formality, smoothly bending to her will without her having needed to use a single spell or skill.
Bungo: “There’s a unifying theme, but each set of armour is unique, tailored to our bodies, stat builds and likely requirements. Tomsk is strong and tough; his armour is the heaviest and represents the sinews of the dragon. There’s a bit of supporting leather but it’s mainly metal, so he gets a minimum DEX target and puts the rest into STR. He can catch up on CON later.”
Tomsk nodded.
Tomsk: “Enchantments?”
Wellington: “Alderney asked me to avoid anything affecting attunements or stat points. Based on your research about what the mercenaries and hunters value when they’re actually out on missions, she’s asked me to focus on practical things. There’s no point in having fantastic armour that is in your stash when you need it, rather than on your body, because you overheat after just a few minutes of exercise. Unfortunately, while cloth can be enchanted to fit different body shapes, and even leather to a certain extent, the best metal can do is slowly self-repair. Heavy armour simply isn’t quick to put on or take off.”
Bungo: “Mine counts as medium armour, but it still won’t be quick to wear. It’s a lorica, representing the scales of the dragon, but it’s actually got more cloth and animal parts than metal and is much lighter than it looks - it depends upon me being fast enough to intercept the hardest blows with the armour’s few really strong spots. So I get low targets for INT and STR, then put the rest in DEX.”
Bulgaria: “So if you had an unbreakable weapon, you could strap that on and have a perfect defence?”
Bungo: “I wish!”
Wellington: “You’d need at least three such weapons, and the interference pattern from large artifacts containing that rune pattern would create a rather strong feedback loop, especially if stationary relative to each other.”
Bulgaria looked disappointed.
Bulgaria: “Someone already tried it?”
Wellington: “Not recently, but the Mage Tower library contained a folio of handouts for a lecture series on the history of rune magic. It was mentioned in one of the footnotes.”
Bungo: “You read the footnotes? All of them?”
Wellington: “Doesn’t everyone?
The two looked at each other in mutual incomprehension.
Kafana: “So, um, what happened to the guy who tried it? Did he die?”
Wellington: “A woman, actually. Brynhild of Jazdow. It turns out too much order isn’t good for the body. It stopped everything moving, including her heart. But no, as far as the priests could determine, she’s still alive.”
Kafana: “How??”
Wellington: “It stopped her blood too, and every process in her flesh that might need energy or oxygen. I don’t know if she still thinks, but the warmth left her body and no blade or spell can touch her. The only reason they put a warded circle around her was to stop youths drawing upon her face.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Kafana shuddered at the thought. Could Brynhild be freed by means other than magic or physical force? As soon as she started wondering, she got a message:
[Quest “Rescue the Ice Maiden of Jazdow” available. Slavic region. Difficulty rank C. Do you wish to accept?]
Bungo: {Cool! We can take that, and put an offer on the Burrow to give it to any player in that region who wants it for when they reach level 40.}
[Quest accepted.]
The crafters working on the Renewal Project were heading back to work, but everyone else was still celebrating or practicing shooting penalties. However a respectful space had been left around the new monument where the Wombles were standing, and they all noticed when Vessel Alderney suddenly became more energetic.
Alderney: “Hi guys! New shared document ARMOUR_STAT_TARGETS.”
Alderney: “Everyone ok with that? Bulgaria, I know you wanted to test something by keeping all your stats the same, but I really do need you to pick a main stat. Would you prefer less INT and more STR? I’m planning something very primal for you, very dramatic and reptilian, with lots of horn and darkened bone to fit in with your necromancy, but I could change it if you tell me now.”
Bulgaria looked around to check they wouldn’t be overheard, a crafty look upon his face.
Bulgaria: “Actually, about that… my hunch paid off. A few days ago I received an achievement, ‘Everyman’ that increases all my stats by a percentage which depends upon a bonus. My bonus is currently 30%, but it will increase as I go up level.”
Bungo: “Unbelievable. I want it. You just need to have the same number of points allocated to all six stats?”
Bulgaria: “No, I think you also need to be an actor or similar, who manages to pass themselves off as a member of widely differing professions. The bigger the gap between your highest stat and your lowest one, the less your bonus affects the percentage. The smaller the gap, the bigger the increase in the cumulative bonus.”
Wellington sounded impressed.
Wellington: “You analysed the game mechanics and predicted this?”
Bulgaria: “I’m not a mathematician. I didn’t study the game. I studied the game’s designers. For every style of play the developers find a way to signal ‘that too is valid, you have not been forgotten’ the more loyal customers they retain. I just looked at what was being complained about by people who stopped playing on the Morob server, and asked my expert system to model XperiSense’s likely reactions. I’ll have Aeschylus send you the data, if you like?”
He sounded humble, but Kafana could tell just how pleased Bulgaria was with himself. Well, good for him - he deserved it. Hmm, talking about sending expert systems off to analyse data…
Kafana: {Dinah, any progress on finding couples that match what we know about Nicolo and Antonio’s parents?}
Dinah: [One partial match so far: an embargoed recording of Wellington talking with Flavio mentions a Sebastiano married to a Domenica, which names can be abbreviated to ‘Sebby’ and ‘Mimi’ but there’s no mention of children. I am continuing to search for likely relatives, based upon similarity to Antonio and Nicolo’s features and those from his memories]
Kafana: {Sebastiano? Flavio’s older brother? Nicolo, an incredibly bright orphan and mage with strong potential might be the nephew of Flavio, a genius who has already reached High Master Mage rank at an exceptionally young age. Two NPCs with key plot status, both linked to the same quest, turning out to be related to each other? Of course that’s it. It makes too good a story for it not to be true.}
They were on a roll now, she could feel it. Wombles Indomitable! She’d just wait for Bulgaria to enjoy his moment, and for Alderney to reveal the armour she had planned for herself, Wellington and Kafana. And then she would drop her own surprise, before they headed back to the Ghetto in triumph, to find Dottore and the Raggedy Man, fix the sword laws and free Flavio from his curse!
She felt on top of the world.
For about a minute.
And then Pierrot arrived, bearing word from Planchet that the long feared riots had started. After years of having the guilds ignore their demands for better safety in the factories, one final jolt had been enough to make their rage boil over. One final needless death.
Just an orphan. A clumsy well-meaning orphan, little different from all the other apprentices from Torello’s poorest districts, who ended up maimed or poisoned, their pain and lost levels little more than a footnote in an accountant’s ledger, an emotionless number in a long column of monthly statistics, not even accorded the dignity of bold or italic fonts to distinguish it.
But this statistic did have a name, a name that would eventually echo the length of Torello, from grungy tavern basements to the pristine spires of power.
Her name was Goffa.
1.3.2 : An Allotropic Realignment
Next up, Episode 1.3.3 : An Unrequited Love
