Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Hide and Seek

They had been walking for about an hour when Jace’s necklace expired.  Instead of recharging it, he swapped it for the original amulet that started this whole mess.  According to Gracie, it should have another couple of hours left.  Also, as an orc, the massive broad sword he had been given wasn’t too long.  With some help from Esther, he modified his kilt and the sheath so the sword hung comfortably on his hip.  However, he stored it in his inventory while he traveled.

“What can you tell me about this quest?” Jace asked as they began to ascend into the hills.

{I assume you are talking to me,} Gracie replied.  {It is pretty standard.  You are going to run into a few hill giants pretty soon.  They will throw rocks at you, and you need to kill them.  Once you get into the mountain, there will be some stone giants.  Kill them.  Then there will be a frost giant at the top.  Most players equip themselves to be immune to fire and forget about cold, so he does a lot of damage to them.  Of course, most parties usually fling a lot of fire, which hurts him right back.  You and Snowy will be mostly immune to his cold damage, so he probably won’t use it, but Esther will be vulnerable.}

“But normal level 9 players can pass this module, no problem, right?”

{I wouldn’t say, “No problem.”  This is the hardest one of all the quests in Cepton.  I’ve never seen it given to a party of two people before.  It is usually reserved for parties of four.  However, you and Esther are more potent than most parties of four, but you aren’t as diversified.  As an RPG player, you know that a group with different abilities complementing each other is stronger than the sum of its parts.  You have no magical damage in your party.  I already looked it up, and all of the giants you will face are considered Traditional, so your spell will be worthless.  You have no magical damage or defensive spells or range attacks.  If it is set up at max difficulty, you might have problems.}

“And what is the reward again?”

{You will have your Strength increased by one.  Then you will get a choice between three magical items.  One of them will be a ring of Strength +2.  It is the item most people pick.  You can’t use it, but it will turn Esther into even more of a badass than she is now.}

“Does Esther get the +1 to Strength too?”

{No.  Very few level 9 characters have NPC companions yet, as they are primarily found in the harder SIMs, but those who do, have reported that their companions don’t get the boon.}

“Where do the items come from?  Has anyone tried to negotiate to get more than one?”

{The duke thanks you for killing the giants and says that his men searched the cavern and found the three magical items.  No one believes they are in the caves.  And if you spend too long searching before finding the frost giant, there is another attack on the village, they kill a bunch of people, and the quest is considered failed.}

“From what I know of Gandhi, she doesn’t cheat,” Jace said.  “The items are hidden in the cavern so no one can find them.  You said no one has ever found the collar before.”

{Correct.  Jace, you need to understand that very few people play this like you, trying to break the game.  It is their life.  You can make a good living in the realms.  Trying brand-new things in a module that has been played a thousand times is like an airline pilot randomly flipping switches in the cockpit to see what they do while at 30,000 feet with a planeful of people.  When you have everything to lose, you end up relying on the collected wisdom of every player that has gone on before.  Occasionally, players try new things and die, losing months of progress.  That is another reason why your playstyle irks me.}

“I will find those three items, and then when they need to give us a reward and don’t have them, I will leverage something even better.”

{I hope you are right.  But now it is time to get your game face on.  The first giants are over that next rise.}

Jace had a far-off look while he talked with Gracie, and Esther recognized when he was back with her.  “What’s the story?”

They were stopped behind a large cliff face with a path up and to the right.  Jace understood they would see the giants when they crested the rise.  He also noticed the sun was setting over the mountains, and he didn’t like the idea of marching in there with the light in his eyes.

“Giants up ahead,” Jace replied.

“How many?”

Gracie answered the question.  {Should be four if they are playing at the most challenging setting, each with 400 Hit Points.  Also, they will have damage reduction modifiers.  Tell Esther to dispel that with crits.  All the giants you face will have that.}

“Four of them,” Jace repeated and relayed the extra information to his companion.

{They will have a hard time hitting you, and you will hit them easily, doing multiple crits, but it costs extra to do a crit ability against giant kin, so choose them carefully.}  She gave him more information like AC and damage bonuses, and Jace absorbed it all.  He didn’t know if Esther thought in numbers since this was all real life to her, so he only told her the most important things.

Esther kept waiting for Jace to move, but he kept sitting still.  “All your items charged?” he asked.  Esther nodded.  She had dumped 160 mana into each of her rapiers using the Heavy Weapon spell, allowing her to take full advantage of her damage modifier four times with each blade.  She had also played around with them and realized she could choose when to use it, to wait for effective strikes that did the most damage.  Jace had also filled his ring to protect against slashing damage.  It had taken two rounds to do it since he didn’t have 250 mana, but he generated it quickly.  Unfortunately, he didn’t suppose the giants would be using bladed weapons, and Gracie told him it offered no protection against blunt.  Jace had also placed a crit protection spell in Esther’s armor.

“What are we waiting for?” Esther asked after they had been sitting for several moments.

“The sun to set,” Jace replied.  “We both fight better in the dark.”

Esther smiled at the wisdom, and Gracie agreed.  {Hill giants don’t see well in the dark.  If the light level is below 10, they will get -5 to hit you.}

They waited another fifteen minutes, and the hillside was cast into shadow.  “Ready?” Jace asked, removing the halberd from his inventory.

Esther nodded.

They scrambled up the loose rocks, and Esther hid in the shadows.  Jace didn’t bother looking for her, trusting she would be where she was needed.  There were four giants up ahead on a ledge strolling back and forth, squinting into the darkness.  Snowy and Esther would be able to approach in silence, but he knew he wouldn’t.  However, he wondered how close he could get before they noticed him.  He was looking for a good place for his Damage Sink totem when he finally got close enough to see their stats: level 12, 450 Hit Points.

{That’s more health than they should have.  It looks like Gandhi isn’t going to let you off easy.}

Jace chuckled and invited the AI to do her worst.  He was within 100 feet when the first giant saw him, and they all started gathering rocks.  Jace dropped his Damage Sink totem on the rocky wall to the giant’s right, sticking sideways out of the stone.  He put the other one at his feet as he raced up the slope.  Rocks flew past him, none coming close, proving they did have horrible eyesight in the dark.  The level 12 giants had used up their initiative advantage, and Jace was able to strike first, angling toward one giant to cut the others off.

They were each over ten feet tall, and Jace, in orc form, looked small by comparison.  Still, he showed no fear and drove the sharp edge of his halberd into the first enemy.  The dial was still working for now, and he saw the weak point for the giants wasn’t where he expected.  They had no shields or dodge ability, and their massive tree trunk clubs wouldn’t parry anything.

[4x Crit.  5x damage? Stun. 3x Damage?]

Jace saw that he had to pay two crits to stun the giant, but he did it, and the resulting damage should have been around 100, but Jace saw their magically enhanced resistance cut that by a third.  As if on cue, Esther came flying out of the shadows off the cliff wall and into the back of the second giant.  She allowed her weapon to dispel the damage reduction and still did 6x damage which amounted to over 140. She bounced off that giant, who stumbled mightily under the blow, and the other two chased after her.  She sacrificed her second attack that round and cast a burst invisibility spell on herself.

Jace stepped around his stunned giant while Snowy raced behind him to gnaw on the paralyzed meal.  The wolf got massive damage results against the stunned creature, who lost what little AC it had.  The second giant took the time to look around for the opponent that had stabbed him in the back, and Jace let the round reset so he could do another massive critical strike.  He let all the damage through this time, and it was over 160.  This creature was down to one solid strike already.

The two giants chasing Esther almost ran into the stone wall, as it looked like she had disappeared into it.  They were still scratching their heads when the vampire leaped out of the shadows from a ledge and did another massive strike against one of them.  This time she stayed on the creature’s back, grappling herself securely.  The hill giant had enough resistance to prevent her from getting a critical in the attempt and enacting her vampire ability to consider him pinned and Helpless, but he couldn’t dislodge her or perform standard actions.  The second giant thought he would do the first a favor and lined up a strike on her, but Esther leaped away, and the giant got a critical hit on his friend, doing over 100 damage.

Snowy was putting the finishing touches on the stunned beast, while Jace had avoided getting hit by the one Esther had initially dispelled and had dropped him to below 100.  The next round saw Jace dealing another massive critical strike, killing the creature.  He turned to help Esther but found her laughing as the stupid giants had attacked each other twice and were dangerously low.

She stopped laughing when two more hill giants exited the cave opening to their left.  She cast another burst invisibility spell and disappeared.

{Six giants?} Gracie scoffed.  {That’s cheating.}

Jace didn’t complain out loud, stepped up to the first one, and stunned him.  Esther jumped out of the shadows again and dispelled the second one.  She stayed on the ground next to it, dodged a swipe, and delivered another hit with her offhand.  The attack did minor damage because she enacted the critical ability of the second weapon instead, disarming the giant.

As the stupid beast bent over to pick up his weapon, leaving him flat-footed against Jace’s attack, the orc was able to get an extra crit and did over half his health in damage, dropping him to the ground to bleed out.  The two giants pummeling each other finally agreed to stop attacking when Snowy jumped onto one of their backs.

“Get it off!  Get it off!” the giant screamed.  The other beast obliged and leveled a massive strike against his friend’s back just as the wolf dropped to the ground.  The doomed giant fell dead on the rocks.  As the attacker mourned this unfortunate turn of events, Jace and Esther walked up behind him and allowed him to join his friend in death.  The stunned giant standing in the mouth of the cave escaped the spell just in time to see all three fighters coming at him.  He didn’t last long.

That left the giant on the ground, who still had half a dozen rounds to finish dying.  Snowy latched onto one side of the beast’s neck to speed things along, and Esther tentatively bit into the other.  Jace looked away.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized a minute later once the giant was dead.  “I needed to refresh my mana.”

“It’s okay,” Jace replied.  “I didn’t realize this was a dinner date.”

Esther smiled at him as she wiped her mouth.  “I didn’t realize it was a date.”

She strode past him, playfully slapped his butt, and entered the cave.  Jace rolled his eyes and followed.

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The cavern was huge, as it would have to be to house giants.  They saw massive sleeping quarters off to one side with six bedrolls.  The cavern continued to the left, up into the mountain, but Snowy went straight toward a dead end, her nose to the ground.  The cavern was almost pitch black, but all three had bonuses to see in the dark and could make out some details.  There was no door or markings on the flat stone wall, but the wolf walked right up to it and scratched the ground.

“What is it, girl?”

<Kobold.  Trail end here.>

{There is nothing there,} Gracie said.  {Players have been over this cavern with a fine-tooth comb and found nothing.  None of you can find or unlock hidden passages.  Many others can, and they didn’t find anything.}

“I’m sorry, Gracie.  I trust Snowy, and I am going to try.”

Jace was a stone shaman and felt that should give him some intuition if the wall before him was fake or if there was a hollow portion behind, but it didn’t.  He looked at the floor in the dim light but saw no scratches to indicate a door swinging open.  Despite all this, Snowy insisted the kobold was behind this wall.

“How far away, girl?”

<Close,> was all the canine could communicate.

Jace went to his spells and selected Righteous Judgment.  This would take a few rounds, but he felt it was worth it.  He had regained all his mana from the two totems he had cast, finding that if he dismissed a totem, he recovered half mana back from it, depending on how damaged it was.  He opened the lightning spell and looked at its design.  It had no range, duration, or area.  It was just a touch spell that did a one-time amount of damage.  Jace changed all that.  He programmed in ten feet of range at the cost of ten mana and increased the area to ten feet in radius.  This cost him 50 mana.  He set the damage to ten for another 50 mana.  Then he made it last five rounds.  He needed to pay the damage cost again and then spent five mana per round.  The total cost of the spell was 185.  That was almost all of his mana, but he also realized that against Esther, it would do 80 damage for five rounds.  Right now, he would be happy for ten damage a round.  He just hoped the kobold wasn’t traditional like the giants.

Crouching in front of the wall, he placed his fingertips on the stone and told Esther to back WAY up.  He couldn’t see past the wall before him, but he had traced out paths in rock when searching for his totems in the past, and he did that now.  He reached along the floor and through the wall until he traveled ten feet.  Then he released his spell.

{Something just took 20 damage!} Gracie announced.

Jace couldn’t hear or see anything except the cold wall before him and only waited for the next round.  {More damage,} Gracie announced.  {Something or someone is behind that wall.}

Jace just hoped a 20-foot circle was large enough to fill the small room.  If the kobold could find a corner outside the spell, he wouldn’t have to come out.

{Now, three things took a lot of damage.}

Jace nodded.  The kobold had summoned allies.  The lightning spell jumped to other enemies at half damage, meaning each creature took three hits as the damage bounced between them.  He backed away from the door and, on a hunch, traded his halberd for the sword.  It also had been three rounds since he had cast the spell.  He had generated 60 mana during that time and had enough to cast his Armor totem off to the side.

Before the round ended, the wall before him hissed and cracked.  A rectangular outline appeared where no seem had been before, and, like the dwarven door opening on the side of Erebor, the massive slab swung inward.  A terrified kobold ran out.  Jace let him pass, but Esther was standing behind with her swords drawn.  She executed a vicious “X” cut against the creature, and the already severely injured kobold didn’t handle the critical well.  His head popped clean off, bounced twice on the stone floor, and Snowy caught it in her mouth, swallowing the misshapen sphere whole.

Jace was aware of what was happening behind him but ignored the antics and prepared for what would come out to meet him.  Two metal constructs ambled out of the room, sparks jumping between their bodies.  They looked like metal insects, six legs each, made from sharpened spikes.  Their bodies were two small shields welded together in a clam shell, while their front legs were short swords.  The lead creature reared up before Jace, keeping its back four legs on the ground while lifting its front ones to attack.

Jace initiated his parry mode and, as the strikes came in, felt his arms move outside his control and deflect them.  {The sword has a parry skill of three,} Gracie informed him.  {Raising your AC from 27 to 30.  Those sword beetles only have an attack bonus of ten, so they need a 20 to hit you, but they get three attacks per round, and they are swarm creatures meaning they get +5 for every ally next to you over one, and they don’t have to flank you to get it.

As the second sword beetle joined the fight, Jace saw their attacks slowly getting through, as now they only needed to roll a 15+, and there were six attacks a round.  His sword moved under its own power, and try as he might, he couldn’t control it as long as he was parrying.  The game gave him breaks in the attacks to initiate his own strikes, and he began hitting them back.  The shield-shaped bodies gave them decent protection, but with his amulet in place, he delivered 20s back at them.  Each creature only took two strikes to die, and in between his attacks, his sword blocked three-fourths of their return strikes, moving faster than Jace thought he could accomplish on his own.

A zapping sound came from the room before him, and soon another of the creatures came trotting out, its metal feet clicking on the ground.  Esther stood beside her orc companion and let her two weapons match the metal creature in front of her, trying out the parry action.  Each sword only gave a +1 bonus parry, but they were cumulative.  Still, that only gave her a bonus of +2 to her 18 AC, allowing her opponent to hit her half the time.  She winced as she received two slashes for 15 damage each and then initiated her Dodge action instead, which was at 14, and raised her AC to 32, making it almost impossible for the beetle to hit her.

She dispatched her opponent at the same time Jace took out his, and another came from the room.  “Where are they coming from?” Jace asked.  He peered into the cave and saw his lightning storm was over, and two metal totems sat in the room.  One looked like a steel turtle shell with six swords sticking out of it.  The other was a giant, inverted fishhook with an iron orb floating in the middle of the circle, pulsing with power.

{That is a Summoning totem powered by Mana Bank totem.  It will produce a sword beetle about every three rounds until the Mana Bank runs out, and then it will produce a beetle every six rounds for the next hour or indefinitely if the kobold stayed in range.  With him dead, that won’t happen.}

“How come he could have two totems that close together?” Jace ignored the current creature as Esther happily took care of it.

{There is a feat that breaks every rule.  I figured you didn’t need it as you could strategize around the constraint.  A metal shaman usually specializes as a craftsman and has several totems that help him fashion metal weapons, armor, and other magical items.  Placing each of his totems 50 feet away from him would require a massive workshop.}

“How many beetles can exist at the same time?”

{Up to half the level of the shaman.  The kobold was level 12, but I doubt he had enough mana to support six.  Probably only three.}

As they talked, another beetle popped into existence.  Jace took two attacks to kill it.

Off to his left, the Mana Bank totem expired.  {You can attack the Summoning totem to destroy it, or you will have to deal with those annoying constructs for a while yet.}

Jace did as Gracie requested, destroying the totem before another beetle came out.  Beside him, Esther sheathed her swords, and the sticky-fingered rogue looked excitedly around the room.  It was a lab roughly twenty feet in diameter with an uncomfortably low ceiling.   Metal equipment and scraps covered half a dozen tables, with several smelting cauldrons and molds sitting in carved-out pockets along the walls.  Jace also saw metal strips crisscrossing through the floor in a complex network.  He remembered the Mana Bank totem had stood on one of those lines, connecting it by metal to several other areas of the room.  The stone shaman found it relatively easy to keep himself in connection with his totems, but this kobold had to set up his workshop like a circuit board with metal pathways connecting everything.  While Jace evaluated the room’s layout, Esther began rooting through the supplies looking for treasure.  She stopped when she found a locked cabinet.

“Jace, can you help me with this?”

“Can’t you pick the lock?” Jace asked.

{She’s not that kind of rogue,} Gracie advised.

No, Jace thought.  She’s the assassin kind.  Regardless, he walked over to the storage drawer, delivered two powerful strikes with the pommel of his sword, and the cabinet popped open.

Esther’s eyes went wide.  “Look at these!”

{Well,} Gracie said with a reluctant tone.  {It looks like you’ve done it again.}

Jace smiled as Esther pulled out three items: a ring, a belt, and a necklace.  He motioned the woman to set them on a table and step back.  With a reluctant sigh, she obeyed.  After loading each into his inventory, Jace could identify the items: Ring of Strength +2, a belt of Stone Giant Damage +6, and an Amulet of Athletic Prowess +6.

{You can’t wear the ring,} Gracie advised.  {Your strength is already above 20, and the game won’t let you permanently modify it above that with equipment.  Also, since you will wear the illusion amulet most of the time, you can’t use the necklace either.  Both will help Esther out quite a bit.  The damage belt is better than your resistance belt, and you can give your old one to Esther too.}

Jace offered his partner the items, and she graciously accepted the equipment.  Once she put the new belt on, she took a moment to transform it into a thin, braided cord that replaced the plain one that had held up her swords.  When Jace had examined the necklace in his inventory, it had looked like DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man within a brass ring, a sapphire in the center of his body.  After Esther put it on, the human image shifted to look more like a female silhouette you might see on a trucker’s mudflap.  The ring was now gold, and the sapphire looked like a blue diamond. As Jace couldn’t help but stare at the pendant lying flat on the top of her sternum, he remembered her Athletic skill was directly tied to her pickpocket and grapple abilities.  Jace shuddered at the possibilities.

After another few minutes of searching, they found nothing else.  Once they left the workshop, Jace saw an equipment icon hovering over the headless kobold, but Esther beat him to it.  The only thing of interest to them was a small bracelet with an emerald set in the middle of the band.  “That looks a lot like the gem in the dog collar I found,” Jace said.  He rolled his eyes up into his inventory but couldn’t find it.  When he returned from his screen, he saw Esther holding the collar and bracelet side by side, confirming what Jace suspected, that one controlled the other.

{She picked it off you when she slapped your butt earlier.}

“I know,” Jace said under his breath.  “She is never going to stop doing that, is she?”  He remembered that she was still the one with the Level 50 crystal.

{Are you going to stop living by your principles?}

Jace didn’t answer, and after Esther finished her examination, put the bracelet on, and was about to store the collar in her inventory, she looked up to see him giving her a cold stare.  “You didn’t really want this, did you?” she asked, holding up the collar.  It no longer looked like it belonged to a dog but a dominatrix, though the difference was subtle.  “It doesn’t really seem like your style.”  She spent a few moments accessorizing the item with her Quick Change Artist ability, so she could produce it on demand and looked like she was ready to continue.  Jace took the time to recharge his damage reduction ring, as he had taken a few slashing hits from the sword beetles, and then unsummoned his totems.  Esther had also taken a few hits from the metal constructs, but they had no way to heal her yet.  They continued up into the cavern complex.

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