CD Chapter Twenty-four (Patreon)

Alpha juggled the slippery little critter as she ran back outside. ::Am- Myles, what did you do this time?::

Myles looked up from where he was sitting on the steps of the temple, chatting with Toggle, and laughed.

“Nice! That should have happened right away, but you ticked Quezal off before he could even give it to you, so it was delayed. Probably good, since D3th-nut decided to try to steal it.” He stood, brushing off the seat of his leggings.

Alpha grabbed at a weakly wriggling strand of whatever-it-was and poked its slimy loop back into her hand. “What is it?” she demanded. “Other than disgusting!”

Surprisingly, it was the gnome that answered her. “It’s a Blessed Beast, Mistress! Truly, you must be beloved of the Gods! Each God gets one Beast to grant to a special follower. It marks you as someone to be reckoned with!
“I don’t want to reckon with anyone!” she hissed, continuing to run right past the two. “Do you know what players in Bloodhaven do when they see something unique or shiny?”

Myles scooped up Toggle and jogged up beside her, keeping up easily, even though she was going as fast as she could. “Kill the person who has it?” he asked.

“Try to steal it?” Toggle suggested.

“Yes, and yes.” Alpha grumbled. “We’re already running late, and now I practically have a target painted on my back. A bigger one.” She shot a black look at Myles, who didn’t even seem to notice. “I want to get out of here. That’s it. The sum total of my current ambitions.”

Myles nodded, then sped up, leaving her staring at his back and Toggle’s face as he peered over the AI’s shoulder. ::Then hurry up,:: Myles sent silently. ::What are you doing way back there?::

Alpha gritted her teeth before admitting, ::This is as fast as I can go.::

::Really? According to your metadata, you have a hundred and seventy-eight stat points to allocate. Drop a few in Dex and Endurance, and you’ll be right up here beside me. Congratulations on leveling up, by the way.::

::I wanted to…:: She hesitated. She wanted to what? Wait? Think and overthink it? She’d been mulling over what to do with those stat points since the moment she realized she had them. Usually she knew exactly what she needed to do to keep her build balanced, but that was when she had a job. Orc-Alpha needed to be strong, agile enough to dodge most attacks - thus avoiding triggering aggro - but with enough health to take the blows she couldn’t evade. Once she’d reached the half-orc maximum of intelligence and wisdom, the rest was easy.

But Vamp-Alpha was a different being entirely. Her ‘job’ was to somehow rescue Amy Landon from Durance Vile, and who knew what stats she’d need for that? One thing was almost certain, however; she’d need more Endurance, if she wanted to be able to use her [Vampiric Stealth] skill for a decent length of time. Which, obviously, she did, because she couldn’t avoid logging on during the day, or hide inside the entire time.

She sighed. ::Let me know if anything goes sideways, okay?::

Myles flipped a hand up in acknowledgement from a half a block ahead of her. ::Gotcha covered.::

Focusing on Myles’ back, she thought, Follow Myles2Go until we exit Bloodhaven.

You are now Following Player Myles2Go until you exit Bloodhaven.

She shook her head. She still wasn’t sure if it was creepy or amazing that the game seemed to be able to read her mind now. Normally, she would have had to go into her interface, select Myles from the party list, and then set up the command from there, so this was a lot easier. Easy, but disturbing. Still, it meant she could focus on stat distribution instead of running, so she pulled up her stat sheet and contemplated it.

She was now level eighty-four, but with two extra stat points per level, she’d have the stats of a character sixteen levels higher. The difference between a level eighty-four character and a level ninety-six character wasn’t enough to guarantee the higher level character would win - after all, skills, spells, and stat distribution mattered - but even a focused crafter sixteen levels higher than a warrior would have a fighting chance. At least, a fighting chance to last long enough to run away.

But Alpha wasn’t a crafter. There was only one craft she’d ever been particularly drawn to, and when she’d deleted her original character after her mother’s death, she’d left behind the creative mindset, too. No, she was a mule. She was strong, she was fast, it took a lot to take her down, and that was the way she liked it.

First, she needed more health. Or Blood, as the case may be. She didn’t ever want to be at the mercy of Bloodthirsty again, and while Amythyst had said she’d do something about it, she’d also said she couldn’t get rid of it entirely. That meant Alpha needed to handle it.

She poured fifty-nine stat points into Vitality. With the Vit times five racial boost from being a vampire, that brought her health up to twenty-one hundred. Not insane, but not something anyone would expect from a low-eighties character who wasn’t a tank, which should buy her some time.

Another forty-one points into Endurance. More endurance meant she wouldn’t wear out as quickly, and could do basic, non-Skill activities like running more easily. It would also allow her to recast [Vampiric Stealth] more times. With the stat now at one hundred twenty-five, that gave her five hundred stamina points, which bumped her to the next threshold in calculating stamina recovery, too. Given that her stamina and mana now regenerated at half of human normal, any increase was worthwhile.

That still left her sitting on seventy-eight points, and she put seventeen into Intelligence and fifteen towards Wisdom, clicking ‘Accept’ before she could change her mind. Those stats had been maxed for so long that seeing them go up was almost surreal. Still, while Vampire seemed to lean heavily toward skills over spells, it also used Int or Wis to calculate the odds of skill success. She’d already used [Mesmer Eyes] to save her bacon, but if D3th Angel had been any kind of mage, his Int would have been high enough that the skill failed, and she would have had to resort to something more… drastic.

Forty points were split between Strength and Dexterity. Which left her sitting on six, just in case. She’d never been the type to save points for an emergency, but with this many to spend at once, she thought she’d try it. After all, if she got close to losing fifty percent of her health again, another thirty might be enough to make a difference, but if she needed more stamina to use one more skill, she could drop those points in Endurance instead. It made her slightly queasy to think about being in such an unpredictable position, but Amythyst was like a chaos generator, and every time Alpha thought she was figuring things out, the AI turned her world over again.

Satisfied, she considered her stat sheet.

It looked good, and the increased regen in both mana and stamina would help, even if only a little. She focused, intending to turn off Follow, but felt her legs stop moving before she could do anything. As she waved away the cascade of windows obscuring her vision, she wondered if the game was now reading thoughts she hadn’t consciously formed yet, but saw that it had simply completed her previous instructions.

You have left Bloodhaven. Follow is now disabled.

Myles had stopped a few feet ahead of her, and put down Toggle, who was looking a bit windblown. The AI winked at her. “Looks good, Alpha. Ready to hit the Guild?”

She hesitated, glancing at the disheveled gnome, who was trying to smooth down his hair and his hat at the same time. “Toggle can’t enter the Guild Zone, though. One or more of the idiot trio might respawn here, and he’d be undefended.”

“Hmm,” Myles tilted his head, the twinkle in his eyes giving away the fact that he wasn’t really worried. “D3th has his respawn point set at Erasa’s temple, and he’s going to have a heck of a death delay before he can log back in, and then he’s going to have to deal with some hefty debuffs. Quezal was not happy that his shiny new priestess almost got ganked on his doorstep. Oblique sent some messages that she’s AFK for a day or so, since she has ‘some real life poop to handle.’” He made finger quotes, and Alpha rolled her eyes.

“Which leaves Vexxx,” she said.

Now Myles really did look thoughtful. “Vexxx is… an interesting case. His respawn point is at the Guild, but he doesn’t play often. His schedule looks like he gets some time on weekends and a few evenings, probably after school. It’s unusual that he’d even be on right now. Anyway, my guess is that he won’t bother logging back in today.”

Alpha shook her head. “It’s crazy the things you know,” she muttered. “Do you even care about people’s privacy?”

The humor fled Myles’ face, and his green eyes slid away. “What am I supposed to do? It’s all in here,” he tapped his temple, “whether I like it or not. Should I lobotomize myself to avoid it, or just pretend I don’t know?”

Impulsively, Alpha reached out and touched his arm with the hand that wasn’t holding the increasingly wiggly ‘Blessed Beast’. She took a step closer. “I’m sorry.” He still didn’t look at her, so she slid over, putting her face in front of his. “Myles, I’m sorry. Thank you for letting me know we don’t need to worry about them, at least for now.”

The avatar’s eyes finally met hers, and one corner of his mouth tilted. “I get it,” he said defeatedly. “I’m in your head. I’m in everybody’s heads, at least a little bit. All the time. I try to shut out the noise, but if I think about someone for longer than a nanosecond, everything about them is just there, like I downloaded every file linked to their profile since the day they were born. It’s-” He stopped, biting his lip, and looked away again.

Alpha grabbed his chin, turning his face back to hers. “But you’re you,” she said. “I trust you. If you wanted to, you could obviously do basically anything you want. Just hack through it until someone figured out how to shut you down. But you don’t. You have all that power and knowledge, and yet here you are, just another player. Well,” she smirked, “another moderator. Albeit one with cosmic powers.”

Myles laughed, gently taking her hand to remove it from his face, though he might have held onto it just slightly longer than he needed to. She was surprised at how warm and real his hand felt on hers before he let go. “That’s not that big a stretch. The Mods in VO are pretty much all-powerful anyway, and when a Dev logs on, they can literally do almost anything they can imagine. This,” he motioned to himself, “is Amy’s Moderator avatar. Amythyst is a Dev, and Amy is just a player. Though she does have some really nice equipment.”

Alpha stepped back, ignoring the way her cheeks were burning. They were still way too close together. “Is that why you’re suddenly a guy? Can’t you just,” she flicked her fingers, “poof yourself female? I know there are ways to do it.”

He shrugged, and though he didn’t quite look away, his green eyes flickered to the side before coming back to hers. “Yeah. But playing as a guy is fun, sometimes. Plus, when we get to Refuge, well, there’s a chance someone might recognize Amy. No one there has seen Myles, though, so he’ll be relatively anonymous. I figured I might as well start out this way, rather than shifting halfway through. Especially since you’re going to be meeting Tessle soon.”

Alpha paused, looking around, as if her friend might suddenly appear beside her. “Not that soon. We can’t even fast travel to Vargo, since Toggle can’t go through the teleport circle, and we’ll have to cross the mountains. It’ll take days, even now that the road has been improved.”

“Yeah,” Myles grinned, the familiar glint of amusement returning to his eyes, “you better check your messages. I’ll stay here with Toggle. Just don’t go more than fifty feet away, and we’ll be fine.”

Alpha looked down, realizing they’d been ignoring the gnome while they talked, and the little NPC was probably confused, at least as much as his programming would let him. To her surprise, he was frozen, hat clutched in motionless hands, halfway through a blink.

Myles shrugged. “I just paused him for a minute. He’s fine. It was easier than explaining.”

Alpha just shook her head. What was it like, to be able to just do anything you wanted, at any time? The temptation to break the game in your own favor must be tremendous. She glanced down at the white worm-thing in her hand, nose wrinkling with distaste, and thrust it into Myles’ hand before he could protest. Finally free, she sighed in relief and crossed the line into the area controlled by the Traveler’s Guild. When she checked her messages, she found that she had fifty, all from Tessle. Ignoring the first forty-nine, she opened the last one.

@Tessle (offline): I’m in Bloodhaven. Where are you? I’m off work for two days, so send me a message, pronto!

Alpha blinked. Tessle had left Refuge? More, she must have paid the fee to fast travel from Refuge to Bloodhaven, because otherwise she’d still be on her way. That wasn’t cheap, and VO wasn’t an easy game to make money in. Quickly, she hit ‘Reply’.

@AlphaOmegadon: I’m at the western Guild, but I need to log out for a little while. Back in an hour, real-time.

Message sent, she paused, waiting. PMs sent in the game pinged the player’s screen, if they had notifications turned on, so they could respond, but the person in-game would only get it if they were still within range of a Guild.

Sure enough, a new message was added to her queue less than a minute later.

@Tessle (offline): I’m in the north guild’s Dead Tent, but I’ll meet you at West in an hour. Don’t be late!

Smiling, Alpha closed the interface and rejoined Myles and Toggle, who had recovered from his pause, and seemed completely unaware he’d missed anything. Myles was laughing, and Toggle was trying to keep the white beast from crawling into his sleeve. Alpha looked between them, speaking aloud for Toggle’s benefit. Myles obviously already knew what she was about to tell them.

“My friend Tessle is going to join us here in a few hours. Toggle, Tess lives in Refuge, so she can tell us the best way to get there.” She paused before eyeing Myles and suggesting hesitantly, “She might even go with us?”

Myles nodded. “That’s probably her plan. I doubt she’s going to want to leave you behind once she finally gets hold of you.”

Alpha nodded, though she could feel a smile gluing itself to her face. “Yeah,” she said. “Probably not.” She forced her mouth back into its usual scowl and asked, “What’ll we do in the meantime? I can’t just use the Dead Tent and leave you guys out here.”

The Dead Tent was most player’s favorite place to rest. From the outside, it literally looked like a small, dark tent that stood behind or to the side of the desk in the center of every Traveler’s Guild. Once you booked a room, however, you just walked in, laid down in the simple but comfortable bed, and logged out. It was cheap, safe, and always had room, since it created a separate instance for each person.

Myles nodded. “Your avatar doesn’t need normal sleep any more to get the Well-rested buff. All you need to do is find a spot, log out, and get back before your character gets hungry enough to start looking for blood.”

Toggle practically jumped up and down in his eagerness as he said, “I’ll give you blood, Mistress! You don’t need to worry about going on a rampage and massacring people while I’m around!” His bright smile belied the dark truth of his words. As she understood it, ‘Alpha’ would retain more autonomy than the avatar of a non-vampire player. If vamp-Alpha got hungry, well,vamp- Alpha would get food, one way or the other.

Alpha offered the little gnome a reluctant smile. “Thank you, Toggle.”

Myles nodded earnestly. “I, for one, appreciate not being snacked on when I’m away.”

Alpha shot him a scowl, which slid off the AI like water off a duck’s back. “Do you even have to log out?”

“Nope!” he said cheerfully. “But sometimes my attention is elsewhere, and I don’t want to come back to find that my friendly neighborhood vampire decided she had the munchies.”

“I might decide that anyway,” Alpha muttered, looking around for a good place to hide for a few hours.

“I do look tasty,” Myles agreed, and led Toggle away while Alpha was still red and spluttering. After a moment, he continued speaking over party chat. ::How about over here? There’s a little cave behind these bushes. No sun, though that shouldn’t be an issue for several more hours, and it’s far enough off the road no one should trip over it.::

Alpha reluctantly followed in the direction her companions had gone, and found herself stumbling over them before she realized they were there. Myles was holding the branches of a dense hedge aside, and Toggle was already in the small cave beyond, staring around with his slightly bulbous blue eyes as he carefully cradled her ‘gift’ from Quezal. She slid past Myles, carefully avoiding touching him, and sat at the back of the hollow, past Toggle. Myles joined them, and the tight space felt even tighter as his warm arm and leg pressed against hers.

“All right,” the AI whispered, leaning in close so his breath tickled her ear. “Toggle and I will keep watch, and you go do what you need to do. Don’t worry, I can be in more than one place at a time.”

Alpha jerked away, almost crushing poor Toggle in her urgency to create a little space, and logged out.