You have eaten the Jeweled Egg of
Eystr’e.
Random stats: Luck, STR.
Luck increased by 420.
STR increased by 550.
Random Buff: Iron Constitution
Immune to all Poisons below Godly
level.
Random Debuff: Monster Magnet
Random encounter rate increased by
100%. Random encounter difficulty increased by 50%.
|
You have eaten the Hare Egg.
Random stat: CHA
Cha increased by 682.
Random Buff: Unholy Radiance
Like Lucifer, the Fallen One, your
visage is wondrous to behold, causing some to forget your evil deeds, but
this makes those who know your true self hate you all the more. Infamy
treated as 0 by all factions you are higher than Unfriendly reputation with.
+4000 Infamy.
Random Debuff: Threshold Aversion
You may not enter a private residence
without permission from the owner or one authorized to invite guests in. Once
given permission, the residence is open to you so long as the owner lives
there.
|
For your Luck passing 500, you gain a
Perk based on your playstyle:
Lucky Spin
Once every 24 hours, you may use a
Lucky Spin. This unique magic targets one creature within line of sight. A
spin board appears behind them and they are bound to it before being spun.
Whatever the spinner lands on will happen to the target. Some effects are
good, some are bad, some are neutral. Every time Lucky Spin is used, the user
must pay 1000 MP and 1000 HP.
|
For your Strength passing 500, you gain
a Perk based on your playstyle:
Overwhelm
Your melee strikes are so powerful that
when you hit with a weapon wielded in two hands, or with both weapons within
1 second of eachother while dual-wielding, the force may stun even the most
terrible foes. 100% chance to stun enemies 20 levels below yours. 50% chance
to stun enemies 20 to 1 levels below yours. 25% chance to stun creatures up
to 10 levels above yours. 5% chance to stun creatures greater than 10 levels
above yours. Stun lasts 5 seconds. Can happen no more than once every 30
seconds.
|
For your Charisma passing 1000, you
gain a perk based on your playstyle:
Deific Charm
Your physical charm and force of
personality are so great that those who would be attracted to your race and
gender normally are filled with overwhelming desire for you on your first
meeting. Note, this applies to monsters as well. It does not make enemies any
less hostile towards you, but it may make them wish to capture you for
personal use rather than killing you. This lowers the inhibitions of those
meeting you, making them more likely to act on their newfound desires towards
you.
|
OK, so of course I was going to eat the eggs. Besides the
fact that they were chocolatey goodness (and trust me, they were WORLDS better
than the candies you get around Easter), the potential for massive stat boosts
and permanent buffs were too good for me to pass up, even with the debuffs. I
admit, some of these may prove a problem, but fuck it, I had the stats to roll
with it.
Of course, I didn’t do this in front of the remaining
townsfolk. This was while we were at camp that night, just after dinner. We
weren’t going to hang around Cadbury, and see what happened to the town, since
I didn’t think there would be any quests worth our time there. For now, we had
three choices on where to go: visiting Black Rock, killing the Trolls, or
hunting the goblin.
Thankfully, I wasn’t going into this blind. My Quest Map had
both Black Rock and the troll village marked, as well as a hazy area marked for
where the goblin could be found. Enough to get me leaning in the right
direction, but not taking all the bother out of searching. And the border of
the hazy area was nearby. Hmm. Well, since that was closest, I’d go Goblin
hunting.
Our pace had slowed considerably, even though we were
walking on the road (which was supposed to be less filled with monsters),
thanks to my new debuff. But fortunately, we were in a zone where the monsters
were in the 40-50 range, so our random encounters weren’t too bad. If it was a
single monster, it would be in the 60-75 level range, but with groups of
monsters, what would be a group of 6 would become 9, and so on. Sometimes they
would split the difference, with a slightly increased group of slightly more
powerful monsters. In this area, that wasn’t so bad. But I could tell that by
the time we got to high level areas, I was going to have to really be on top of
my game.
Ah well. Wouldn’t be worth playing if there weren’t any
challenges!
Anyways, we mostly fought monsters of various types, though
a couple groups of goblin warriors told us we were going in the right direction.
And that direction appeared to be the ruins of a city. Oh, not a city of stone
or other materials like you see in fantasy worlds, but like a modern city in
one of those post-apocalyptic movies that get so popular.
You have entered an Alchera.
|
An Alchera. Fragging wonderful. Alcheras were like magic
pocket dimensions overlapping the world. Sometimes they were simply extra
space. Sometimes they were ‘elsewhen’ places, or even places that hadn’t been
in this world. Hard to explain, but when they showed up, everything usually got
either merged with the new reality, or shoved aside. Didn’t cause damage, but
it was freaky as hell. Alcheras were classified as a kind of temporary dungeon.
Only, they didn’t always have monsters and the like in them. According to the
information online, some had shops, libraries, and other services. I even heard
of one, off on the continent the Asians get to start in, that had a massive
brothel filled with ‘workers’ of all species.
Walking through the ruined city, along the cracked streets
and between the crumbled, rusting fragments of skyscrapers, we finally came to
what was like a clearing in a forest of metal. Looking ahead, I saw a low
building made of stone, which may have been white at one time, but was now
stained and weathered by the elements. At a set of stairs leading to what must
be the entrance, there were two pedestals, and upon each was a statue of a lion
laying on its haunches, as though guarding the building. Above the columned
arches, I could see a message carved into stone, obscured in places by moss.
Curious, I had the girls help me clear away the moss (it was
easy enough to climb the weathered columns, after all), and was shocked by what
was written there. MDCCCXCV THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY MDCCCCII. We had found an Alchera of New York City.
Looking at the others, I said, “By the gods, if I see one
person wearing a Vault-suit or five-foot tall turtles, I’m going to blow this
place sky high.” That got a laugh from the other Travelers, though the ‘locals’
didn’t understand the significance.
Pushing on into the library, weapons at the ready, we found
the place, understandably, wrecked. Well, it was a post-apocalyptic alchera, so
I guess that was par for the course. In one hall, we found the remnants of old
computers at one side. I kicked at some debris, and found a box that,
surprisingly, had survived all this time. Opening the plastic box, I pulled out
something I’d never seen before. It was a blue square, about three and a half
inches on a side, with a metal plate over part of it.
Enchanted Archival Disk
|
|||
Type
|
Tool
|
Rank
|
Artifact
|
This unassuming piece of technology has
been infused with magic, giving it properties it never had before now. This
disk is reusable, but can only be used for one purpose at a time.
Choose one of the following:
Skill
Save – Store one of the user’s skills at one rank lower than its current
level (Basic 8 would be stored as Beginner 8). The user’s skill is reduced by
one rank.
Skill Load – Grant the stored skill to the user, at the stored rank. If the user already has the skill, increase the skill rank to match stored rank and level. If user’s skill level is higher than the stored skill, this function cannot be used.
Upload
– Convert written text into appropriate stored skill (can be used for Skill Load).
Archive
– Store an archival copy of the user at their current level, including
current XP and skill levels. Costs 1000 XP.
Restore
– Restore an archived copy of an individual to their saved state. If living,
the individual is restored to their saved state (including loss of XP and
character or skill levels if they’ve progressed since the last save), but
retain their memories of the intervening time. Deceased individuals are
restored to life as they were at the time of saving, but without memory of
the intervening time.
|
|||
There were twenty-four disks in this pack. Twenty-four
reusable ‘get out of death free’ cards. Well, not free, and while it wasn’t as
good as what we Travelers got, it was certainly a good deal for the locals in
our group! It would be better if they never had to use it, but if we could
‘back up’ our locals before a really tough fight, then that would give me a lot
more confidence in taking on fights above our level. I knew as well as anyone
how lucky we’d been to not run into anything we couldn’t fight or talk our way
past, and there had been some close calls.
The silence was broken when Kamla spoke softly, and said, “I
smell blood nearby.”
Following her vampiric senses, we soon came to the remains
of quite the battle. And I groaned as I realized that I had left something out
of my list things I’d blow this place for up if I saw them. Scattered on the
ground were five rats, each the size of a St. Bernard. Of course, when you
think about New York, you gotta consider the rats. At least it wasn’t giant
roaches.
I sighed, and pointed down the hall, where it looked like
there was a blood trail to follow. Whoever killed the rats had survived, it
seemed, but was wounded, and pretty badly by the looks of it. Weapons drawn,
just in case we discovered any more of the furry pests, we followed the trail.
As we followed, we began to hear sounds of battle, and quickened our pace.
Irradiated Super-Rat
Level 50 Rat
Titles: Plaguebearer
|
K’thka the Vile
Level 65 Rat Lord
Titles: Plaguebearer
|
Minsee Hardstaff
Goblin Female
Level 70 Beastcaller (Shaman) /
Stormsinger (Druid)
Titles: Genius, Devoted, Hunted
|
It seemed we had found our goblin, and she was fighting for
her life against five rats, one of whom was at least the size of a dwarf. Well,
shit. We were going to have to save the goblin so we could then decide the
goblin’s fate, weren’t we?
No comments:
Post a Comment