The Intermission Pt9

"Why did you make your character… the way you did?" My little sister asks suddenly after the famous reveal of the unorthodox stamina method used in the game and how it correlated to a person's movement speed.

In the same way that a character's stamina was dependent on the player in reality and then subject to change by race and class, movement speed was also determined in this fashion. If a person in reality could for some reason only reach a top running speed of ten miles per hour, their character's base top speed would be the same before the introduction of race, stats, and class passives.

"Because the lady who helped design the game said the human race was the hardcore race and being classless was the most hardcore character class," I reply with a shrug without really even having to think about it. "Classes like beast people or halfling races are for people who are trying to compensate for something or experience something new. The human race has a direct reflection on your reality self, especially if you keep your real body. Since you guys are kids I would suggest using a half-elf or the halfling dryad race."

"Why can't we be like you?" My little brother asks suddenly, looking up from what he was writing down with worry.

Arching an eyebrow at the innocent look on his face, I say, "Because I'm trying to make things easier on all of us. The human elf halflings have the most balanced starting spread of stats so if you guys started without a class then you would have a higher starting point than me as well as a near-reality character setting because its the 'gentlest' hybrid."

"What about the half-dryad?" My sister asks curiously, flipping through some pages in her large notebook to find a page containing the names and stats of all the races. "Why that one?"

"So I could stick you in an alchemy lab for your entire game lives producing healing potions that I can profit from," I reply honestly and shamelessly. "You guys would have to be healers and supporters, anyway, so it would be easier on me to do things that way."

"Then we wouldn't get to play with you!" My sister exclaim in dismay, playfully slapping my shoulder with her notebook. "All you've done for a year is sleep, we want to play with you, too! You even almost missed my birthday!"

I was fighting a war in monochrome, in my defense. "I said I was sorry," I say instead as she goes ahead and swats me a few more times like a giant fly that did not look dead at all, knowing it would be easier than trying to defend myself in any way. "Tell you what, I'll get you guys all the way up to half of the highest level before I ever even think about making you do your own missions, okay?"

By the time they actually started playing, the highest level if not my own would be at least one hundred and babysitting them around Sierra until they were level fifty would take a long time.

After having upset them, the two went back to watching their 'educational' videos and studying in silence. I was at least aware that both of my siblings maintained the same A's and B's that I had in school and I could clearly see how they managed it. Both of them were studious and timely in the jotting of short notes without ever losing track of what the discussion was about.

Even though they had complete control of the remote, they rarely ever rewound the video to go over the same information twice.

After a while of learning about different game facts and popular builds or styles across different videos, my sister suddenly breaks the silence by asking, "If you were to name your style as a class or build, what would it be and what IS your style?"

Lucky bastard? No good for children. Overachiever? Too presumptuous by itself.

"Lucky Overachiever," I say with a small laugh, being both playful and serious at the same time. "If not for how lucky I had been, I would essentially be a generic magic warrior with a lot of slaying achievements that would make my hunting and general leveling easier than everybody else. But, almost half of my overall experience comes from crafting so maybe Luck Crafter? I don't know."

"Will we have to do crafting?" My brother asks with dread evident in his voice because this was not a field that he put much study into. Neither of them really did, all of their focus was on fighting and the details of the game itself.

"You will definitely have to make your own armor and weapons for as long as you play," I reply with a sad and slow sagely nod of my head. "Part of this update is about putting level restrictions on items you did not make yourself. Plus, I got like fifty to a hundred stat points just from smacking metal with a hammer, classless players need every bit of that they can get."

"Do you want us to be classless?" My sister takes her turn to ask while going over her notes on character builds and classes. "I thought we were going to be healers, wouldn't that be clerics or druids or…"

"I'm not saying I want you guys to be classless but you keep saying you want to play with me and be like me so why would I think you guys would cripple yourselves in a cleric class?" I ask in a drawn out reply while waving their attention back to the video. "If you want to be whatever because whatever then go be whatever, I'm just letting you know there are options."

"I want to be classless and learn how to do everything," my sister decides only a second or two later after barely paying attention to the video they had chosen to watch. "I want to be able to summon demons and angels at the same time, stuff just like that!"

I have no clue how to use summoning magic unless it was calling up wild spirits in a séance and that alone was a skill I had no idea how to teach. Without acquiring the affinity through an item or maybe a rare quest, one would have to be epic-level rare in order to randomly channel a spirit or entity capable of responding.

Not for the first time, the idea of a Ouija board in the game occurred to me but that alone was just plain a bad idea for all kinds of reasons.

"Tell you guys what," I decide at length after they moved on to yet another video on the screen which was from several top clans from across servers having a video call and discussing general content and how it would effect the players of the different territories and ecosystems. "If you really do pick the classless route, I will personally teach you my two greatest skills. However, after that, you'll be on your own for coming up with attacks and abilities."

"What are your two strongest skills?" Both of them chorus at the same time in excitement, unable to pick another video to watch after having their attention stolen completely by me. "I bet the strongest is that zombie power, right?" My brother goes on to ask.

"One of the top two," my sister enthuses from my other side. "I bet it's zombies and the power to turn giant."

Technically, the real strongest skills I have really would be either of those two in second place and my ability to Assimilate would be number one. However, the cordycep skills were things that I could not simply teach my younger siblings. If I could impart those abilities, I already would have.

Shaking my head to both of them, I say, "My greatest skills that first helped me set myself apart from the average player were 360 Edge, a spin attack, and Channeling, the ability to summon and commune with spirits. 360 Edge will only take some simple practice and live action for you guys to pick up. I was told that, normally, players will pick up a half-spin attack instead that grows into a three-sixty but my Luck stat and some other passives gave me a full spin skill thanks to the fact that I learned the skill through just combat use."

"How did you figure out how to talk to ghosts?" My brother asks in confusion, looking to my mom who was actually using the administrative device for my character. The thing that could lock me out of the game for disciplinary or health reasons was being used to watch movies.

"Being thorough in my tutorial," I reply with a proud raising of my head. "While the tutorial itself is somewhat scripted in most parts and limited to some degree in locations, there are still numerous hidden benefits. Mine was finding a sword from my tutorial boss and loot from a dead adventurer that they were attached to. That classless adventurer spirit now inhabits my primary weapon and gives it some unique skills and perks but I learned how to consciously use it skills and later how to strengthen the spirit. This is not likely to happen for you guys, but since I have already have such powers it would be easy to enlighten others.

"So, make sure to look everywhere and do everything you can in your tutorial," I go on to pressure them, knowing I had received some of the best noob gifts the game has to offer from my own. "If you're good and lucky, you might catch the attention of something or someone."

These statements caused them some confusion, but then they simply brushed it aside and went back to picking a video to watch. Now, though, they did away with half of the videos on the screen and replaced them with videos based on building a classless player and acquiring basic skills.

Seeing this, which would have actually been somewhat boring for me, I quickly say, "What do you need these videos for, you've got someone who is possibly one of the top ten strongest classless players in the entire game. Anything you need I can teach if not simply give, go back to that update panel. Those clans were hitting the hard topics of stuff in the game you'll need to know about."

The video itself was only so-so for information because it simply brought up future prospects and alliance points that would be expanded and decided behind closed doors. However, it was interesting to see what the true top clans of the different servers were up to while I was not around.

As I had thought, the roaming and settled mob aspects were a hot topic because everyone wanted to know how big or small they would be and their available options for dealing with them. If they were so big, some people even put out ideas of outright herding them to NPC settlements to create and resolve crises for a variety of profits.

Little Thirteen, speaking in place of one 'Big Thirteen' in the open-door conference as one of the top three current overlords of the game, outright questioned how those people had made it to the call list.

After a short round of people vouching for not only their clan, personal skill, and personal character, the conference continued by the top three agreeing that such dangerous and underhanded methods should be avoided. It was alright to scam NPC in most any normal way, but risking their lives for profit was a quick ticket to the black list of almost eighty percent of gaming society.

In lieu of such methods that would risk the economy of the game itself, Little Thirteen himself made suggestion of herding roaming mobs together in live streams as a form of in-game gambling with different types of currency.

There were numerous other issues throughout the half-hour conference video, such as the current player economy with the upcoming introduction of a cross-server auction function through in-game banking. Since I had ties to an NPC auction house I had barely paid attention to this, not just because the bank auctions were player-only but because it would make everything I make and sell much more exclusive and valuable.

The point of bidding was to make people bid more than the item's worth. Players, unless supported by one or more good groups, would only be able to have x amount of money depending on the player themselves. Even if they had the most money of any players, they would also need to have more money than a die-hard interested NPC. They basically WERE the game's economy which made them substantially wealthier than player groups.

Previously, it would be like a rich kid's allowance being converted into hundreds of thousands or a few millions of old gold. The same version of that person as an NPC whose family wealth was entirely game currency would have access to tens of millions of old gold.

However, there were some things I would better prefer to sell in cash rather than in game money like blessed equipment. I was sure there were players out there who would pay through the nose for a tenth tier weapon even if they were only about a tenth of the level requirement, let alone one with attributes. Although, why would I give them something so powerful?

It would be more profitable in the long term to sell blessed bars of different alloys so that people buy more and more to compensate for their personal skill or just low skill levels. Giving out the weapon would be like opening a business for one day and then closing down despite only meeting one percent of the supply demand.

After discussing how to deal with the unofficial moderation of the player economy to maintain certain values for everyone under the banner of a monopoly free free-trade system they moved on to less update related topics. The top three world clans revealed that not only was Thirteenth Incorporated involved in one of the first clan versus clan type of event but there were actually several such events currently taking place.

They were all also coming to a close, or else the public would not have been informed, but it was clear they were making it known to everyone that the first and biggest powerhouses of Bygone Era had been decided.

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