Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Body Count

Jace looked over at the still form of the beautiful woman sleeping soundly on the balcony.  It felt a little creepy looking at Esther’s character sheet, like he was going through her things while she wasn’t looking, but it was necessary.

{Wow,} Gracie said.  {She is even more broken than I thought.}

Jace couldn’t believe it either.

[Strength: 17; Dexterity: 22; Constitution: 16; Intelligence: 14; Wisdom: 8; Spirit: 22]

{She has two stats at 22.  People had always assumed her Spirit was closer to 16.  Wait a minute . . . it looks like, as an angel, she gets a +6 bonus to her Spirit.  Amazing.}

Jace looked down at the settings he had adjusted from his Convict feat and saw that her Nature had changed from Undead to Fallen Angel.  Her Kind was still Vampire, however.

{It varies from NPC to NPC,} Gracie said, {but most companion characters suggest what they want at each level, and you can approve it.  They do this subconsciously, so you don’t have to talk about it, but you might ask them to learn different spells based on your play style.  The more you let them do what they want, the closer they are bonded with you.  However, if you have a good reason to change something that benefits them as much as you, you usually don’t get penalized for it.  Esther is going to be difficult to keep close.  When she joined your party, she only had a bond strength of 60.  Anything under 50, and she could leave you at any time for any reason.  Anything under 75, and she can be lured away by another PC if they are a better fit.  When you let her kill Belle, you gained five.  You gained another five from letting her address the widow, and you have another conditional five because she loves your familiar.  That puts her at 75, which is safe for now, but if it drops any and she meets a handsome bard more closely aligned with her, she could leave.  And trust me, when other players find out what you did, they will want her.  Keep her happy.}

“Look,” Jace said, choosing his words carefully.  “I agree she is breathtakingly beautiful, but there is no reason the game couldn’t create a dozen more women like her.  Plus, all of them would be created in a VR environment where your interactions with her are more real.  What is so special about Esther?”

{Because she is not in a VR environment.  People always want what they can’t have.  Plus, she is a vampire, which adds an element of excitement to it.  Because she is not VR and is heavily scripted, players know she won’t kill them.  No one would be stupid enough to sleep with an actual vampire in an unscripted VR setting where anything could happen.  There are VR women you can have as companions in your party who will play the whole game naked and sleep with you whenever you want, and people are tired of them.  Designers reacted by making their bodies with even more extreme proportions, which didn’t help.  Esther is right on the edge of beautiful but realistic, unattainable yet approachable, deadly yet restrained.  There is simply no one else in the game like her.  And now that she is VR compatible, people will be after her even more voraciously than your Level 50 Crystal.}

“So, I should rubber stamp all her decisions here, and it doesn’t matter?”

{No, taking a quick look at what she wants, I think we should change at least one thing.  When you gift her a bunch of equipment in the morning, you will recover any loss from asking her to change and then some.}

Jace remembered he had taken more than the rapiers from the elf assassin, and all of that equipment would be perfect for her.

{She is a rogue, in case you didn’t know.  When you met her, she was at level 10, but the game adjusted her to your level.  Also, because her nature changed and many of the decisions she made in getting to 10 don’t work anymore or are redundant, she was pushed back to level 1.  Her class stat is Dexterity, and she chose her second key stat to be Intelligence for the first five levels and Strength for the last four.

{For Strength, she put everything in Melee, with any extra going to Damage.  She gets a +5 special bonus to Damage for being a vampire.  They usually fight with claws and teeth, so they need it, but she can also use it in weapon strikes.  She also gets a +5 to Athletic as a thief.  For Dexterity, she gets a ton of points.  She maxed out Stealth and Off-Hand and put the remainder in Dodge.  She also gets a +5 to Dodge and Stealth for being a Rogue.  It would be good if you got a ranged attack party member at some point, but Esther doesn’t want to be it.}

“Can you explain the Off-Hand skill?  I assume that means she is using two weapons.”

{Yes.  Her melee attack bonus for her off-hand comes from this skill.  It can never be larger than her primary Melee skill.  You can only use light weapons in your off-hand.  Rogues start with proficiencies in light-bladed and light-range weapons.

{For Constitution, she had five to spend and put them all in Hit Points.  Here I would make a change and put one of those in AC.  You have some shadow scale armor to give her, which will make her very powerful, but she needs 5 AC to wear it.  She will lose a few Hit Points, but it is worth it.}

“I suppose for someone who spent most of her time naked, she didn’t need much armor.”

{Are you judging her again?}  The tone was just severe enough that Jace couldn’t tell if she was kidding.  Gracie didn’t let him know.  {For Intelligence, she made this a key ability, so she got a bunch of free points and put them all in # of Spells.  That makes sense for how she is built.  She also gets +5 to perception for being a vampire.  Wisdom is her weak point.}

Jace wanted to joke about how her career choice as a prostitute illustrated her low Wisdom score but decided against it.  Likely, her back story would have her being sex trafficked, so it wasn’t her choice.

{She only got one point and put it in Magic Defense.  Spirit is her strength.  She receives a +10 in both Mana Generation and Mana Pool for being an Angel.  She spent nine level points in Magic Defense and put the rest in Mana Pool.  She has way more mana than you.}

“Does it make sense for me to convince her to be a mage?”

{Not with 14 Intelligence.  Spell Difficulty is the attack bonus for mages.  She has +2.  You want this to be as high as your standard attack bonus with weapons.  She gets tons of bonuses when she casts her charm spells, and I bet she still spends mana to make them more difficult.  She doesn’t have those same bonuses for damage attacks, and any typical character will be able to defend against them.  I was a mage when I played.  Esther wouldn’t make a good one.}

“Now we move on to feats?”

{Yes.  She gets five Dexterity-based feats.  Sneak Attack comes for free with the rogue.  She chose Acrobat, which lets her use her Dexterity base instead of strength for Athletic checks.  Pick Pocket, which combines Athletic and Stealth to steal from players.  Surprise attack, which you are not going to like.}

“Okay, I’ll bite; what does it do?”

{When she attacks someone who is not in combat mode, they must make a Death save against the damage or suffer the consequences. Typically, the Death save only triggers if your attack does more than half their total Hit Points.  A Surprise attack is tough to pull off.  You must have your weapon in your hand or a sheath, and the other player can’t see it coming.  It’s tough to find a character that gullible, but if she has them charmed and/or enthralled, it could happen.  Archers use it most often.  It allows them to get kill shots with arrows against high-level opponents.}

Jace understood why Gracie said he wouldn’t like it.  It was a sucker punch move, especially since she would undoubtedly charm them first.  Jace had to come to grips with who she was.  If she used it excessively to kill or cripple innocent victims, he would talk to her about it, but he wouldn’t change it now.  “What else?”

{Her last two Dexterity feats are Quick Cast and Off-Hand Training.  Quick Cast lets her cast burst spells in a single action, which we already discussed.  It sounds like an Intelligence feat, but anyone who knows at least five spells can take it.  Off-Hand training lets her apply her second highest weapon training to her off-hand.  Weapon training goes up by +2, +5, +10, and +15.  If she is at +5, she gets a +2 to her off-hand.}

“Sounds good.”

{Because she took her first five levels with Intelligence as a key stat, her first two even-level feats are Intelligence based.  The first is Extra spell, which adds a +1 to her known spells.  The second is Enchant Item, which we already went over with you.  For her two Strength feats, she chose Weapon Training and Weapon Specialist in light-bladed weapons.  This gives her the +5 I mentioned above.}

Jace could see that with all these bonuses, Esther had +27 to hit with her main hand and +25 with her off-hand, both better than what he had.  She might not do much damage, but she was going to get a lot of 2x and 3x crits.

“What about all the grappling feats?”

{Those come with her occupation, but we are doing spells next.  She knows six, but she is only asking for five.  The empty slot means she can memorize two versions of each of these spells.  The first one is Charm+, which you know about.  There is a + because depending on how much mana you spend, it escalates to Death.  To charm someone, you need to pay five mana per level.  To kill someone, you must spend 50 mana per level with Daze, Stun, Paralyze, and Unconscious falling in between.  When you memorize the spell, you must decide which bane you are shooting for.  She will be able to memorize two versions, probably one to charm characters ten and below and another for characters level 15 and below.  If you try a higher level like paralyze, but they save, nothing happens; you don’t downgrade to the next level like with the Death save.  To try and kill a level 10 player, you need 500 mana.  That is out of range for almost every mage, but it can happen.  Even so, you get so many bonuses to save against the death spell that it is virtually impossible to do.  Your death save is 55, and then you roll a d20 in defense, so someone would have to have a spell difficulty of 65+ even to try to kill you.  You can pay five mana to increase the difficulty by one, but you already need 500 mana to kill a level 10 character, so you won’t have any left.  This is why level five characters aren’t allowed in PVP zones.  High-level mages could kill them without warning.}

Jace shuddered at the thought of a mage who could cast that kind of spell.

{Her other four spells are: True Strike, which gives +10 to her next attack, and she can cast it as a burst spell for 50 mana; Invisibility, which offers a bonus to Stealth; Heavy Weapon, which allows her to enchant her light weapons so they can use her full damage bonus; and Shadow Step, which I think we should change.  The spell lets her move between patches of shadow as many feet as her Stealth skill is.  But the boots you took from the elf assassin have the spell built into them, and it will be cheaper for her to cast that way.  I recommend we give her the Haste spell instead, which will double her rate of movement, give her one extra attack per round, and increase her Dodge ability.  The drawback is she can’t use Stealth or cast spells while hasted.}

“She doesn’t have any healing spells?”

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{As a vampire, she can only channel negative energy, so she can’t heal, raise an ability score, or cast defensive spells.  There are a few other restrictions, but these are all excellent choices for her.  Now we can move on to her occupation, which should be . . .}

Jace was pretty sure he could hear Gracie’s jaw drop.  “What is it?”

{This can’t be correct.  Everyone assumed she was a Level 12 Escort, which is really good, but this is . . . well . . . this is incredible.}

Jace had also found the right screen and saw she was a level 37 Escort.  “I see that it is high,” Jace said.  “But why is it so amazing?  Didn’t you say she was the best in the game?”

{Level 12 would have been the best in the game.  Advancing in levels of your occupation gets increasingly difficult with each level, and they don’t get you any real experience.  Most PCs only get to level 6, earning them three free occupational feats.  To go beyond that takes too much time and your actual level is more important.  NPCs are usually set at levels 8-10 to be considered experts.  Level 12+ is considered master level.  There is no description for players above 20.  She is at 37.}

Jace thought he might know why.  “How do you gain levels in an occupation?”

{By doing your job,} Gracie answered.  {If you are a craftsman, you need to craft items.  If you are a scout, you need to spend hours tracking for a party.  If you are a bounty hunter, you need to collect bounties.  If you are an Escort, it is all about the body count.}

“And how many people would she have to sleep with to get to level 37?”

{I have no idea.  It’s not something I’ve ever looked up before.  Maybe thousands.  Maybe tens of thousands.  I know it doubles every level up until level 12, which requires 2,000.  To get to level 6, which most players stop at, you need 32 of whatever you try to do.  If it is like experience points, you probably need another 1,000 per level.}

“Then it is 27,000,” Jace said, quickly doing the math.  “That makes sense.”

{No, it doesn’t,} Gracie argued.  {That is one a day for almost 74 years.}  She was good at math too.  {The game is more realistic than that.  Gandhi wouldn’t allow it.}

“What if it was multiple people at once, several times a day?”

{Look, you might not think very much of her, but that isn’t how she operates.  You saw the module.  She takes her time and usually only deals with PCs.  I’m sure the game programmed her with a history, but not that many.  She wasn’t that powerful.}

“Okay, but in the history of this game, how many people have done that module?  You said it was a MIM, right?  When I broke it, over a dozen people were kicked out.”

The light went on in Gracie’s mind.  {So, she has the collected memories of all the PCs that ever played her module?  That could do it.  If you played it right, each PC could have had multiple experiences with her.}

“How is that possible?  Once you killed the fen witch, what happened to the brothel?”

{Usually, Leah would run it.  But Esther had a script that she would always pickpocket your most valuable item.  Then afterward, you had to return to the brothel to get it back.  It was the only way to get back in to see Esther again.  The walkthrough said that the more valuable the item, the more she would make you beg to get it back.  The begging usually involved sexual favors.  PCs were encouraged to visit her with the most valuable thing they could find to improve the results.}

“That would explain why all those players were so mad,” Jace reasoned.  “But she only took the rapiers from me.  Those were not the most valuable thing I had.”

{You mean you haven’t noticed yet?  She took the rapiers after you liberated her because she wanted weapons to kill the witch.  It had nothing to do with her script.}

Jace froze in shock and quickly checked his inventory.  The Level 50 crystal was missing.  He exited the screen and looked again at the woman sleeping on his balcony.  “What do I do?”

{Unless you want to beg, let her keep it for a while.  It probably makes her happy.  You will need to ask for it back at some point.  If she is killed, she will drop it, and you can pick it up.  If you keep it, any other thief can pick it off you.  No one will be able to steal it while she has it.}

Jace thought it was risky to let someone so chaotic carry the item that defined his purpose in this game, but he would trust Gracie here.  “Okay, what benefits does her massive body count give her?”

{It gets her 13 occupational feats.  Like I said before, most people get three from their occupation.  There aren’t 13 feats associated with being an escort, but she can take some of them multiple times.  She has the three that add bonuses to her Charm+ spell: Graceful Charm, Dazzling Strength, and Stunning Body.  They let you add your Dexterity, Strength, and Constitution bases to the difficulty of your Charm+ spells.  I think she only had the first one before.  She has Grapple and Improved Grapple.  They each add +5 to your grapple ability, and she took Improved Grapple four times, so she has +25 to grapple.  She has Quick Change Artist, which lets her swap between two outfits instantly without going into her inventory.  You also get to swap accessories with each outfit, and the game enables you to count weapons as accessories, which is how the women you fought were able to pull weapons from their inventory instantly.  She took this twice so that she can switch between four different outfits.  I’ve known male fighters who decided to work as escorts to get this ability and swap armor mid-combat.  She has Fashion Design, which lets her modify the appearance of clothing and armor items.  She had this one before, which is how she was able to adjust your illusion spell.  And she took Escape Artist twice.  Taking it once lets her add either her Dexterity or Strength base to escape grapple checks.  Taking it twice enables her to use both.}

“How is that an Escort feat?  I don’t recall Houdini turning tricks.”

{I don’t suppose you ever tied anyone up in bed?}  Jace shook his head.  {Well, no one will ever tie her up either.}

Jace sighed as he realized he had created a monster.  “Is that it?”

{Not quite.  She still has her vampire abilities too.  She has Pinning Grapple, where if she gets a critical in her grappling check, which she always will, she can spend it to consider her opponent pinned without having to grapple them against a solid object.  This is so they are helpless when she uses her second vampire ability, Level Drain.  Each round, she can suck a level out of someone, and she gets a rush of mana equal to five times the number of Hit Points they were reduced.}

“What if she goes over her mana limit?”

{She has one round to spend the mana, or it goes away.  But more importantly, if she drains someone to half their current level, they go into a death spiral, the same as if they took half their health in damage.  And since vampires almost always use this ability when their victims are helpless, there is no saving throw.  But she doesn’t have to waste time draining them because she has a natural Coup de Grace ability, where she can spend critical successes from previous disabling actions to kill them instantly.  I think she has to spend one critical per five levels of the victim.  There are other modifiers, but it is pretty deadly.  Vampires are no joke.}

“So,” Jace was trying to reason this out.  “If she touches anyone, she can initiate a grapple hold on them, which almost no one can escape.  Then she can render them helpless and kill them.”

{Like I said earlier, one-on-one combat is usually pretty one-sided.  If her victim has a friend who can hit Esther while she is sucking the life out of him, she will be considered flat-footed.  If he gets a crit, he can spend it to free his friend from the grapple.  So, it isn’t too overpowered, but it is pretty close.}

Jace gazed again at the woman on the balcony.  She looked so peaceful and innocent, snuggled up against Snowy like a little girl with a giant stuffed animal.  It was hard to believe what a killing machine she could be.  He just hoped he wasn’t doing more damage to her than if he had left her in the Gilded Swan.  “Is that it?” He finally asked.

{I think so.  The only angelic ability she has is Flight, but it is disabled because she is fallen.  The game doesn’t mention NPC fallen angels as companions, so I don’t know if that can be reversed.}

“Should I let her sleep?  She is at full health; we could continue now.”

{You should sleep too.  You are not fully healthy yet, and there is no reason to waste mana to heal yourself.  If you want, you have enough mana to cast a crit protection spell into your necklace, and then you can sleep to get everything back.  Since you are in a MIM right now, it will let you skip to dawn and cost you no real-world time.}

“Sounds like a plan.”  Jace moved to the bed and played around with his player settings until he found the rest options.  He could “Rest until healed,” “Rest until Mana at full,” or “Rest until dawn.”  He chose the last one, and his vision faded to black.

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