(tentative) Play It

The time was just a little passed seven-thirty in the evening when i checked it after being cleared to get up from my table by one of the techs, walking over to join the few others with the door by Doc holding a quiet conversation that i could already tell was about the outlaw territories and situations that i had created ot at least about me by the way Doc brightened up at my approach. "Zai would probably be able to explain this to you better," he says after hurrying me with a wave of his hand. "The others have all synchronized with their chitters so that they can draw on their energies, but they are not fully bonded. Perhaps you could tell them the missing piece in making their chitters into proper familiars like yours?"

"Their source of energy," i reply almost instantly. "You have to concenrate really hard on manipulating your source itself instead of just the energy it produces and then connect your source to theirs. The goblin shaman used the same process on you, Billy, so it realy shouldn't be that hard now that you have experienced being bonded, yourself. Otherwise, it's mostly an issue of turning on your aura vision, or just Sight as i call it, so you can actually see what you are doing. Made all the difference for me."

"Speaking of which," Julia says almost irritably. "What's the deal with yours? That little lady was pushy and rude and tried to go through all your stuff and take some gems."

"By their social order, when a shaman bonds with a male its a form of marriage and each other's belongings become shared, so she does have some rights to my belongings because i would be forced to honor many of their practices, but, no, thanks for keeping her grubby little hands out of my crap," i add with as much gratitude as i could express. "She's kind of using a vengeful fire to keep herself going right now because, if not for me, she'd be a body in the water right now, i literally shot myself like a cannonball into one of the outlaws and broke my arm cratering his chest while he was raising his sword to kill her. Totally ruined all the strategies i was working on, but we all survived. Unlike with your partners, she also rushed the process with me and stole more information than she gave, i am still filtering through her memories in my head to study their language whereas her mom was literally teaching Harold how to click and hiss."

"I guess you have another female relationship to struggle through," Maxine mumbles with a wicked grin, making the others look at me with mixed expressions of pity, curiosity, and worry. "I'm sure you'll make it work, Emma was all blush and smile before you went to bed and Hitome doesn't seem to care about anything all that much to begin with. This Issa girl, though, she sounds like a keeper."

"Mmm, yes, fangs, my favorite," i agree blandly, much to the shocked laughter of the group. "As much as i appreciate your vote of confidence, i think i am managing fine on all fronts with all of my friends. Issa, she'll relax after a day or two or settling into the sudden changes in her life, and hitting the workcamp that the ship came from will go far to lift her spirits. She's been weak all her life and suddenly got her hands on some power, albeit not all that much, but she and the other bonded shamans probably have the potential to grow as powerful as we can- not to mention she probably accessed all of my combat and strategy knowledge which probably makes her feel like she is equal to me, the person who rescued her and her fellows."

"He's actually quite right," Doc says with mixed emotions in her voice. "She is actually much more intelligent than your average person and, after being exposed to Zai's actual genius, she had recieved a substantial thought speed and reflex buff from their bond while Zai merely recieved a magic regeneration buff on top of his preexisting mobility buff afforded to him by Spot that increases his jump-height and flexibility. Bearing this in mind, it should not be surprising to hear me say that she is devising various armed and unarmed combat styles based on Zai's studies and their own physiology. Not to mention she also acquired most of his metallurgical information, but their level of warfare just went straight from hunting with their claws to fuedal era Japan and the dark ages of Europe like the greeks discovering iron because they were short on tin for bronze."

"What kind of martial arts could she have actually gotten access to?" Harold asks, having joined the group a moment or two before the professor had said his piece. "Zai says he has only been preparing for the game stuff like this since the game ads and trailers were first released, how much could he have really learned in less than two years?"

"Wing Chun, Muay Thai, Kendo-slash-Nitoryu, Tai Chi, Qigong, Aikido, Shaolin staff and broadsword training, The Art of War, mixed combat strategies of medieval and renaissance eras, Divinci's translations, armor crafting from interlocking platemail to roman lamellar both infantray and cavalry, man i could just go on for hours," i say with some actual honesty, giving Harold a wry smirk after listing off the first things to come to mind. "If she has my metallurgy and chemistry knowledge, she would have the potential to sink the islands. Don't you for a second doubt the information i have at my disposal or my ability to acquire what i don't already have- or hers, after having been exposed to my inner workings."

"Okay, yeah, all of that can be a problem," Harold agrees honestly, lowering his chin into his hand as his mind starts working over the news of Issa's potential as a problem. "I would hate to be the people her grudge is with, so it's a good thing that we're on her side and that we're there to run damage control. What all do you know about her life and personality? I learned a lot from her mother, but only up until her eighth year when their village was discovered by the outlaws, everything after that is the detrimental stuff. As well, do you have any information on the smugglers we're up against?"

"Not much to any of it," i reply sadly as the rest of the group starts gathering around the doorway with us after logging out. "After the village is most a blur of faces and places, but no traveling around so i would have to be there to recognize where, and the faces were in scenes of her capture and several trades as well as bits of life in service and constantly rebelling until she ended up at the end of the line silver mines where they would inevitably be shipped out or die. She has serious grudges against a lot of people, and what's bad for them is she knows where most of them are, but what's bad for us is all those places are large enemy installations like mining camps and lumber mills. If i had to guess, our first goal of where the refugees i rescued last session came from is only like a day or thirty hours away at the most, for us heading inland with the currents it will probably take half that, but wherever we're going we're completely blind about unless any of your partners shared with you information about where they were shipped from."

"Some," Harold says first. "They don't understand the value of metals despite using gems are bartering and gaining the favor of females because of their value in magic, but she knows when the mortal races value a shiny yellow metal called gold. It's a big gold mine in a big granite mountain bigger than the one from last session's island we visited that's white and blue and black instead of pink and stuff. The main entrance is a big square fort structure, i have no idea the numbers on smugglers but there are a couple hundred Scalesh miners that will make valuable allies in your war effort, but probably as many people there. What can you tell me about their mage numbers?"

One mage on the island for Issa and as many on the boat for the females it carried, so a safe estimate is one mage per shaman and one-fifth of the population present seems to be female. "Not good," is my shaking head reply once again. "One-one ratio so far and from those present with us it seems like their present female population is a fraction of the male population- due to death during subjugation or because they came from a mining camp where the males would be of more use i have no way to really know. For about forty overall goblins on the boat, though, there were only twenty mundanes with the five mages, so we could be looking at around one-third the Scalesh population at the work camp being the number of its controllers. We number fifty seven armed and capable with seventeen magic-capable, out of maybe one hundred and some change enemies, a rough twenty five will be mages, maybe more like thirty five just be prep ourselves. Any informations on the surrounding landscape and so on?" I ask of the group at large, inviting any of the bonded members of the beta to throw in whatever they might have.

"On the way out the door..." Doc calls out from just outside the door, dragging the last word out into a faint echo as he walks away and forced the rest of us to hurry and follow him. "As much as i enjoy the strategy meeting, once again we reach that time of day when it is time to go up to the roof and get ready for bed. Remember, we need healthy nine-to-eight hour sleep sessions in order to maintain the beta for as long as necessary. Now, there are actually a few things that i could tell you about the gold mines you're headed to, but all i will say is it's a wooden fort which means most of the island would have been stripped in its construction so the only viable terrain that you could use to your advantages would be the mountain itself."

"Considering the time lapses, the time we get there would possibly be the time they would be wondering where their ship of comrades i sunk was at," i go on after the professor's remarks. "If we wait a session in stealth and rely on the Scalesh for night guards, we can learn their work and guard schedules as well as possibly wait until they send out a crew to check on the missing ship and weaken themselves even just a little with the division. Not to mention, the earlier projected numbers would be impacted by the missing crew so then it would be safe to assume the one hundred guards and twenty-five outnumbering mages. In the meantime, we can find a way to slip some of the males naked into to mines to spread word throughout the workers that the opportunity to rise up and fight back would arrive within that or the next day. When we do strike, it can be with somebody like me on the opposite side of the fort from you guys sending up a big pink sulfur flare to signal the attack before cannonballing myself at the fort to keep their attention on me while you guys with our Scalesh rain down like a vengeful shitstorm on the fort and the workers will rebel in the ensuing chaos."

"Yeah, but what about the enemies themselves?" Hitome counters. "That guy you faught, i never actually saw him, but his aura almost dwarfed yours and you dwarf us, and he was just the leader of the away team. Some lieutenant type of rank, one of many, to some stronger captain, one of several, to some boss-level commander character. Even if it's just one, and i feel like this game wall make it so that there is at least one, person with an EMF like that baby water dragon's, we could all be wiped out by the sheer scope of their magical knowledge and experiences. It would take all of our magic-capable numbers to tackle that one boss and leave the worker males to handle literally everybody else with overwhelming numbers like we will be trying to do against the boss. Honestly, at least half of us would die, including Zai making sure it was only half of us that died- we simply aren't ready for something like this, we need a smaller hit to bolster our forces and partner everyone with shamans before we can even hope of taking on something of this magnitude."

"If we could get all of the workers into the mines, we can level the fort with sulfur blocks and just overwhelm them with the sheer scope of our own knowledge and experiences like i did alone against a ship full of people," i argue in my own favor. "And, just like in my personal battle, probably the only thing left to actually fight will be those super powerful magical enemies that we could overwhelm with our combined magical and non-magical numbers. Best possible odds, all of our sulfur explosives kill everything but the boss NPC, worst possible scenario is that all of the magic users survive and have to face several hundred enemies and i will one-on-one the boss while you guys keep the other mages from completely wiping out the Scalesh population. I have a secret weapon up my sleeve provided to me by the game, and with the help of herbs and the Scalesh workers it could possibly be in all of ours sleeves- a magic buffing potion called Perpetual Elixir that really has one hell of a recharge rate where you pretty much never run out of energy. The gold aura guy i fought was using it, it was really only by sheer effing chance that i beat him alone because it really could have taken all of us to bring him and that potion down, so i can definitely get the main boss away from the battlefield with it to free you guys up to take the fort and i doubt any of the other mages would have his particular trump card except for maybe the boss himself but perpetual magic versus perpetual magic is just a perpetual battle no matter how you look at it."

"You're forgetting that these magic NPC have actual magic training," Harold persists, taking Hitome's side in the argument. "Your last boss battle turned into an aerial duel that you barely even survived yourself. Yes, your magic is innovative and inventive, you got to hold your own in an air battle the first time you left the ground, but their magic was tried and true flight for real while you had to throw yourself around in the air to match his magic. The rest of us don't have... your drive, your know-how, your ability to just throw everything you have into that one thing. My special ability is Clairovoyance, i can't do the whole moving the world around me thing like you can but supposedly i can find lost objects and places and people as well as mess with dead stuff, and Angel is only just learning how to use his Gravity to levitate. We can't all just throw ourselves at the enemy and hope for the best, Hitome is right when she says we need more numbers and time."

"If we wait to hit somewhere smaller first," I try to argue patiently despite speaking through clenched teeth. "Not only will we miss the opportunity of hitting the gold mine while their search team is out and their numbers are even weaker but we lose the element of surprise not only after they find out their ship was sank and there are no Scalesh bodies among the dead but after we hit somewhere else and win everywhere else will be reinforced and expecting us. We need the big numbers and the big morale boosts of hitting somewhere big as our first move, before the spread of information can work against us, because if we can take the gold mine there will be no spread of information and we can keep surprise raiding one fort or stronghold after another building our numbers. Once we lose the ability to seek out and attack, the war takes a defensive turn in which all the allied enemies begin swarming in on our position and net us in somewhere we have to hold out from a siege- and that will be the end of the Scalesh, we can't lose our only real advantage by wasting it on an inconsequential location acting like a bunch of rookies."

"I'm with Zai," Eric says, surprising more than just me with his second to my motion. "Harold, you're a soldier, i know you know what you're about in this, but this is also a video game. Think back throughout military histoy, rebellions succeed and fail based on their ability to manipulate stealth and their weaker numbers to their advantage- like Zai and the ship. The ship had no idea what was coming until it was too late, and his first actual attacks looked like her was test firing a new rocket more than actually taking the offensive, but he still won with surprise and the overwhelming numbers of one person's relentless attacks. On the scale of one person to one ship of people, our access to science and reality information makes us all equivalent to armored artillery units, our combined potential is more than enough to overwhelm an enemy fort without the shamans or their warriors. With the fifty that we have we're already a full-sized army. Yes, i know the scale is based on Zai of all people being compared to about thirty enemies, but there's twelve of us and Zai on his own makes up one third or one fourth of the enemy numbers, you and Hitome alone make up an entire half between you, the rest of us can handle the rest of them."

"We could make it look like I'm alone again," i offer, coming up with an alternative that keeps the others out of harm's way for as long as possible after Eric had jumped to my defense and made a good point. "You guys can stay on the mountain with the Scalesh, once we're sure the workers are out of the way after the search team leaves or if they never send one i can just hit the entire front half with a barrage of the little blocks and get everybody coming at me while i defend myself with Perpetual Elixir and you guys pincer their attacking forces from above and behind with a barrage of our larger sulfur spears. This way, after i draw out the biggest enemies, your stronger secondary surprise attack will have agreater chance of wiping out all of the mages away from the fort and we can save some of the fort for our own use while waiting to ambush the possible away team or just organizing our new Scalesh recruits. If there really is an away team, they cannot be allowed to come in behind us, follow us, or spread information."

"Nearing eight-o'-clock and the elevator is in sight," Doc says almost wistfully. "Once we're at the top, I won't get to be around for all of these fun war councils for a little while... such a shame. But, i promise you all, it will be well worth it!"

"I'll miss having you around, Doc," i say honestly before teasing the man with, "your face has answered more questions than you have, I'll be flying blind from here on out without you around."

"I'm sure my assistant will be of great use to you all," Doc reassures the team as a whole. "Unlike my position in reality monitoring readouts for anomalies, she will be in the game somewhat participating in the sessions while monitoring actual gameplay from an editorial mode to see the affects of certain anomalies that i have been monitoring, especially in your private powers that don't quite seem to be coming into play when they're supposed to for some of you. We have actually been coming across connections between our security disababling certain functions of your Cynaptic software that are tied into processing aspects of the game which have been causing problems for some of you with unique modifications to your headgear- Hitome. Aftermarket might help in private gaming, but it is something i completely overlooked and i apologize to many of you for this and promise it will not be an issue when the next phase of the beta begins."

"So... she'll be there eating our food and stuff, but will she fight with us?" Maxine asks loudly from the back of the group as we all start piling into the elevator.

"Not really, no," Doc replies with a helpless shrug. "Considering her character is much more developed than yours, to throw her in would be an unfair advantage and take away from the actual joy of the game. Her aura is twice that of Zai's on top of her being a magi as well, and she is only at Expert difficulty. Physical combat is not her strong suit... she is a touch on the dainty side. Screams at little bugs and all that- which is funny, because giant insectoids do exist in the game. But, she can do some things to contribute, such as gathering materials or taking somebody hunting with her once a session in lieu of a minigame, and she is not as restricted as i am when it comes to sharing relevant informations."

"So she could actually help in our war councils instead of just talking about being a part of it?" I ask with a smirk from the cramped back of the elevator. "When do we meet her?"

"She'll meet you all in the morning at the gym around six just like this morning," Doc replies calmly. "And, yes, she can talk about such in-game content as locations and enemies with some details. She can't tell you how many people are guarding the gold mine, but she can tell you how many of them have magic."

"We're still holding a vote and council about what to do in the morning, tonight," Harold states loudly from the center of the elevator. "All in favor of hitting the gold mine first and foremost, show of hands." Seven hands rose into the air, eight if the professor's vote actually counted, sealing the fates of the beta in one swift move. "Damn... then i guess this means we're all going to die a valiant death, so be it. We might not know the lay of the land all that much, but i do know the mountain is at least one mile across at the base with a nice round top so we can go ahead and figure out tonight what groups we will move in. We need the main artillery unite and two small teams to get the Scalesh down the mountain under the artillery cover if Zai's plan to draw the mages away from the fort plays out. Eleven of us and six shamans, thats five artillery units and three pairs to lead two teams of Scalesh males into the fort and secure the workers as well as reinforce Zai as needed. Any complaints about your positions?" There were none.

"I'll take Sasha and Billy and our shamans," Hitome says, looking to either Billy or Sasha for complaints and recieving none. "We' can lead the main force down the mountain, i can probably carry ten of them and use my choker to keep us from crashing with bursts of energy and air, then i can rush through the fort cleaning up anybody left alive on my way to help Zai while Billy and Sasha lead the Scalesh into the mine to secure the workers and whatever guards they probably have within."

"I'll take Angel and Eric can work alongside Issa," Harold agrees, choosing somebody to replace me as her partner for the fight. They and their Scalesh can set up a defense outside the gold mine while i play Hitome's part up the opposite side of the fort to draw attention away from the mine for a little while. Once the mine is secured inside and out, ladies, the artillery team needs to head out to support Zai against everybody's bosses because i already know he's going to need it. Zai, you're our magic expert right now, tell me anything you can about the magic the outlaws you fought used that we don't already have- like the gold guy's flight spell."

Thinking back to flying around chasing the guy, i shake my head and say, "It wasn't a spell. I was using Sight the entire fight and there were no projections or changes or even energy spent from flying, so that was more than likely a power similar to Angel's. Angel, if your power is a way of manipulating gravity, you know that the molten metal core of a spinning planet generates an Electro-Magnetic Field like our own aura, so creating, increasing, decreasing, and changing a rotation in your own aura would help to change your own mass on the planet, giving you super jumps and strength as well as flight capabilities by manipulating zero-gravity with lateral G's."

"My power came with a description a lot like that," Angel admits. "My problem is the concentration it takes to maintain spinning. I don't know how to just make my aura stay a certain way, like yours. Yours is all tight and swirly, now."

"I redirected the currents of my energy in on themselves to condense my energy and shrink the size of my aura," i explain to the group as a whole. "This increases your aura's passive ability to defend against enemy magic, allowing less magic to be spent by enemy spells. For you, Angel, this would be a good exercise in in your ability to manipulate your aura which will make it easier to maintain gravitational distortions. As well, because you're in touch with this gravitational field, you have access to a perpetual energy source from which to produce lightning spells, something else i think the gold guy was doing to emphasize his Perpetual Elixer like putting on a show. Since Harold and Hitome will be the first to join me in the boss fight, they should probably come equipped with the other two bottles of elixir because it may not be as potent as i want it to be, after these second thoughts. Otherwise, the game seems to be exposing us to as few different magics as possible because everybody just uses lightning and fire- the silver mine's mage had some jewelry that Issa probably claimed to explain his own lightning productions, as well as this interesting table. Doc, any comments?"

"It's a basic magical workstation design," Doc himself replies as the elevator nears the rooftop. "Just like you thought. It's literally an alchemy table, but this one was made from exceptionally expensive and magical parts like ironwood and powdered dragon scale for the runes that allow the table to function with fairly little energy consumption. It's fairly simple, the components you wish to use in synthesizing something are placed in the pockets, like galena ore, and the table will use your energy to extract silver powder to convert into ingots or trinkets or just powder. You guys can use it as a 3D printer, basically, just feed it iron and alloy components and it will spit out weapons and armor or wire and gems from its pockets or slots about the sides and bottom of the table. The energy imbued in the items, however, is fairly little and is the same wild magic that you synchronized from the dragon gear i gave you all, so the value of what the table makes in that regard is debatable. Silver, however, is silver and will always only be more valuable when added with magic, so carry on- but one tip would be to make alloy ingots or even alloy powder to work into weapons and armor you plan to use with your own magic to increase their potential overall.

"And... here we are," he says at last as the elevator comes to a stop at the rooftop and the doors slide open. "Even this, i will miss. Fare thee well, my brave young companions!" With that, he hurriedly ushered all of us out of the elevator before promptly closing the doors and waving bye the entire time it disappeared down into the building.

"Busy man," i remark sarcastically, being the first to leave the helipad greeting platform to start off toward the dorms. "I'm going to work out and take a shower, if anybody needs me for anything after that they can find me lounging in the commons of the guys' building."

Everybody else maintained the group as i hurried off to get my legs out of the way, talking almost excitedly about the next session and traveling to the gold mine island, but right now i just wanted to finish tearing my muscles apart so i could take a shower and wind down for the night with some research and meditation unless anybody needed help with magic or strategy. Much as i had expected, though, i was unable to complete one hundred horizontal squats at the exercise kiosk and had to stop short at seventy-two to simply drop from the kiosk wall and lie on its floor for several long moments before finally pushing myself up to my feet and moving on to pull-ups instead of upside-down-ups to let my legs get some rest. After over ten minutes of slowly dragging out each pull more for the benefit of resting my legs than working my biceps and lats, i finally come down slowly from the bar to find my legs just steady enough to walk that i exercise by pacing the kiosk a few times before finally stretching my legs on the lower bars of the flexibility side and climbing up the the higher bar to hang upside down from.

I almost could not complete one hundred upside down sit-ups because of my legs, forcing me to rush through the last forty repititions from the fear of falling on or through the lower bars, but i made it through to the end where i quickly grabbed the bar in my hands from between my legs to slowly relax my body into letting go and then lowering myself down to the floor. My legs were not as bad as i expected after having maintained less than ten minutes of static clinging, holding up pretty fine all of the way out to the boy's dorm building where i ended up going to my room to just collapse for ten minutes after checking the bathrooms to see that the shower stalls were all taken. When i finally heard somebody leave the bathroom through my cracked door, i quickly grabbed my clothes for tomorrow and a toiletries before stepping out into the hall to see Harold with a towel and toiletries talking to Eric who had just left the bathrooms. I simply glared quietly at Harold over Eric's shoulder and retreated backward back into my room to wait once more.

The next time that somebody left the bathrooms, it was just Billy alone with his dirty clothes and wet towel over one arm and toiletries in the other while leaving one of the shower stalls blessedly empty. Harold was already doing his grooming in the giant vanity mirror beside the shower stalls when i entered the bathroom ahead of Angel who was just returning from the gym, but i did not stop for pleasantries on my way to the still-steamy stall whose floor was still vaguely wet from its previous occupant. Since i was in the last wave of showers, i did not care about hot water consumption and spent at least five minutes just standing in the borderline scalding water i set the faucet to rain out over me before i even started washing myself.

I was the only one left in the bathroom at nine-twenty when i finally stepped out of the shower over half of an hour after stepping in, leisurely going about my business before going to the sinks to brush my teeth and groom my hair that had begun to get matted from lying down on an operating table all day before finally shaving my face. Nobody else in the dorm seemed to be out and about, which meant that i had successfully killed enough time just soaking in the heat that nobody was left to ask me questions and carry conversation before bed. Because i had offered to help anyone with anything, i was inclined to at least walk out to the gym to see that half of the beta were still up and active after having had early showers, but i only remained in the doorway for a few moments before returning to the dorm to make pop some melatonin and make some hot tea. By nine-forty when nobody had come into the boy's dorm to approach me over anything to do wit the game, i simply went back to my room to lay down with some music playing in the back of my head and was asleep by nine-fifty-five.

*

My internal alarm kicked in at five-thirty and i was right back on my feet, putting on socks and shoes before leaving my room use the restroom and then to make another cup of tea in the commons that i drink while chewing through a heavy protein bar before heading out to the main doors of the gym to wait in the crisply cool morning air with dawn rising somewhere off to the side at five-forty-two while the others were still getting up themselves. At five-forty-six almost on the dot, the elevator arrived and opened to let out a short, petite blond lady in a professional gray suit jacket and skirt with a light blue blouse on underneath who was drinking from a large, steaming up of coffe as she made her way briskly down to and across the helipads. "You're Zai," she said just as briskly as she walked, brushing passed me to stand inside the gymnasium doors where much warmer air was blowing out, probably wishing that she had chosen to wear a longer skirt or dress pants.

"You're early," i reply with a good morning grin before sobering up a bit. "Yeah, I'm the problem child you were probably warned about, Doc and I go way back. What... two days? And we already have something of an in-game affair- i like trouble and he likes making it, which makes for lots of interesting stuff to kill."

"Do you just like killing stuff because you're secretly some sort of psychopath in reality or is there some other kick you're getting out of this," she asks bluntly, returning my good morning grin with a wane smile.

"It's far more superficial than secret psycho," i reassure her quickly. "In everything i do, i try to be the best. I am always one of the top one hundred people in the world in every game i play and i honestly spend very little money doing it, but this beta... this is different. I have a chance to be the best. Even if i didn't have Particle and-or if i wasn't a magi, i would be every bit as amazing as a sorcerer with clairovoyance or a wizard with super smelling. Do you like being the assistant to God's gift to the entertainment industry?"

"Oh, God, he's amazing on both ends of the spectrum," she says with a tired laugh after sipping her coffee, hey dark blue eyes watching me over the lid of her cup. "I have seen that man rage and it's ugly, destroyed a couple million in electronics, and i can already tell you two are too much alike. He's also an incredibly nice person, he heard about an employee's niece coming down with something because they forgot to immunize her for outside of the country travel in the tropics and he had her brought the to hospital here in Harlenburrough- yes, the town founded around the company is named after him- and brought in specialists to oversee her treatment at his- the company's- expense. I watched your fights last night... the use of chemistry to make sulfur explosives was almost a violation of TOS, but you were unaware of the trace compounds and did not actually do anything to emphasize volatility, just launched straight sulfuric fire and gasses at a boat full of wolfheads."

"Olde Englishe?" I ask curiously at the use of the term wolfhead.

"Yeah, somebody with a death warrant, anybody can kill 'em and collect like the still-furred hide of any wolf," she replies. "Wasn't necessarily an English thing, by the way, but bravo on taking out the entire mining camp in such impromptu fashion and once again saving the damsel in distress. Side note, are you going to need to be hospitalized every time you fight? You can only throw yourself at people like a crash-test dummy so many times before the game counteracts your strategy with a relevantly impervious opponent. Not just some random high-powered monster like Professor Harlen's lillt dragon or the gods' early outlaw mini-boss, the gods or the game itself is going to put something in front of you that will kill you if you just throw yourself at it."

"Most people have to fight a boss one or twice to learn its patterns and weaknesses before they actually move on to the next level," i reply shamelessly. "If i die, so be it, but the tutorial really is pretty much over for me- I'm not about to go be a part of some lazy corporate society, I'm going to strip the islands' foodchain bare and put the Scalesh people on top where they were originally intended. This game is advertised not to have caps on things like physical strength and magical capacity, if so i can easily use this opportunity to achieve a god-like status of power and carry everybody to stardom without Harware contracts if i have to just by starting from Hitome's fanbase and taking over the streaming world of this game."

It was now five-fifty and the others from both dorms were starting to enter the gym, making it dangerous to continue such conversation, but Doc's assistant simply says, "Rich, genius, lofty ideals, hunky, hi, my name's Arielle. And, if you play that and the rest of your cards right, i see many opportunities in everybody's futures. Luckily for everybody, I'm pro-beta, i was one of the people who made the suggestion to monopolize on professional gaming by presenting the world with not one but multiple oppositions to strive against as well as keep our own teams in healthy competition with one another. Things will probably go your way, though, you'd be one hell of an enemy for anybody to have."

"Discussing tactics without the council?" Harold, not only the first to join us in the doorway but the first to enter the gym behind me, asks after probably only catching the last sentence or so. "That's just rude. Hello, ma'am, I'm Harold," he adds to Arielle, extending his hand in greeting.

"The well rounded and very grounded soldier boy, charmed," she acknowledges with a broad smile, taking his hand lightly for a single shake after letting go of her cup with one hand. "I'm Ms. Arielle, I'll kind of be playing with everyone for the next few days, so let's all have fun."

"Is it too soon to bug you about the game?" Harold asks after the professional lady's shake. "Doc told us we could ask you the number of enemy mages and it would be nice to get all of the information we can out of you before breakfast."

"I was under the impression the plan was to wait and watch for a session to see if Goldfist weakened themselves," the newly honored Ms. Arielle counters smoothly as the others begin quickly gathering around at five-fifty-five. "But, if you must know, it's twenty-eight out of an original thirty-three. Their specs i can't give you, but there are three officer types considerably equal to the quote-unquote 'gold guy' and one commander-type boss that will be twice whatever Zai's overall power level is at the time of the attack since he is now the strongest player at Journeyman eighty-plus. Since Zai measure's overall power by overall energy capacity, he will be roughly one hundred and fifty feet in EMF radius if you choose to inhibit Zai's growth before the battle- which i do not reccomend because he overcharges spells like an idiot while relying on ether too heavily. Perpetual Elixir is not a super weapon, but it is a rare-level magic enhancer that super charges your magic faster than etherfall between spells- made into a super weapon if you have an offensive capable special ability or magic weapon to allow for several seconds between spells for an overall duration of two hours. No, the enemy does not have Perpetual Elixer, monicer Gold Alchemist's pride and joy."

"Thank you so much," is all Harold can say after hading so many topics dropped in his lap as Arielle simply smiles pleasantly.

"If anybody else has any questions, save them for the elevator!" Ms. Arielle announces loudly to the group, starting off passed me through the gym doors toward the helipads. Once we were all crowded into the elevator and the doors were shut, our warm bodies soon warmed the close quarters and she says, "I hate cold. Usually, i don't even wake up this early because the professor will normally work from twelve-PM to three-AM like he has the energy of a young man fresh out of puberty and isn't actually closing in on fifty. I swear, some times, the man doesn't even sleep, just runs on sugery foods ands french fries for days until he goes into a day-long coma and starts back up again- I'd bet money every time we enter the cafeteria he'll still be at the table just sitting and eating and working on programs in his head or on holoscreens. He's not supposed to, but he will. It's him."

"It's him," i agree, only for the entire elevator to suddenly erupt into a laughing chorus of, "it's him!"

"Quick question for the group," Ariella says quickly during the laughter, bringing it to a swift silence. "Since last night's councils, has anybody actually thought about a flight spell beside's Angel's special ability?"

"I thought about using my aura to produce a spiral jetstream of heat and pressure from my feet for propulsion and hands for directional control, but the energy consumption to get going enough to use my own windstream to feed the exhaust would be a lot at my level," Maxine admits after a few moments of silence. "I would have to jump off of a cliff into water to test that out, though, and i don't fancy my chances in this game."

"Zai does a similar method in burst form and with no spiral feed, both from parts of his body and large body-sized bursts for sudden evasions in the air," Arielle says in response. "You could use the burst methods to get yourselfs in the air and then another to get moving before using the steady feed method for actual flight. I'm sure Zai would have figured it out eventually, but when the method was first devised it was an adaptation of his personal spell Rush to get him more than ten feet off of the ground and continue moving about the air to dodge gold guy's endless attacks without using his mass-limited special ability. Harold and Eric have similar spells for flooding their bodies with energy called Magic Muscle and Strongarm respectively based more on offense or overall strength than mobility.

"Since everybody is suddenly in such a sharing mood," she goes on, pouring out everybody's secrets one by one while using me for an example. "Maybe we should all start sharing our trump cards because, you know, it's not like we're using them on each other. Zai, as a soloist in his history, i understand stockpiling tricks and treats from the beginning, but Harold, you're the team leader and yet have only told Angel and Eric about you're Airskin spell that compresses several hundred pound-psi of air around your body to buffer physical blows? Zai, enough secrets, you're original ultimate technique hasn't even been used since the dragon, it's okay if everybody knows they can fit the granules of sediments or breakage of ice and stone together into a movable body like your Golem spell, but I'm honestly surprised at all of you that Brittany is the only person to use magic to breathe underwater, at all,with something as simple as an airbubble.

"If everyone keeps going on like this, somebody is bound to die because they were individually ill-equipped for their opponent while multiple others would have been better suited," she goes on to admonish the group as a whole, making me feel exceptionally cruddy because of my previous and residual mindsets. "Most of the mages there will be roughly the same strength as you all, but because of that they will not be able to withstand the actual barrages of sulfure after some basic but powerful magic attacks to draw the enemy out to the front of the fort. All of their preferences and affinities i cannot tell you, but the officers use natural magics like elementalism and psychic abilities but the boss is a necromancer who specializes in dark magic. Some of you are good at psychic powers like Telekinesis or manipulating fire into more than just a ball or stream like Pyrokinesis, some of you are learning how to manipulate the shapes of rock and water or manipulate the air itself, but not all of you can do these things and if the wrong person fights the wrong enemy then it's over.

"During Zai's attack is when the advance teams should be coming down the mountain," she moves on briskly as the elevator passes through our testing floor, "when all eyes are on his pink flames ripping the place apart, that way the mine can be secured in the chaos and the artillery unit can focus on surrounding Zai's enemies with explosions to corral them in and make it easier to overpower them with just sulfur attacks. If Zai poured all of his own sulfur into the place, he would likely kill all the lesser mages whose defensive positions would be mostly along the wall while the officers handled the mines, but then he would be facing the main boss and retaliatory officers with just his magic and the elixir until somebody showed up to help, so instead the sulfur should be his second phase attack to wipe out the gathering guards while drawing attention outside of the fort before using roughly half of his sulfur resources on their front line when the officers show up on scene roughly one to two minutes after his opening move.

"Even though the officers left the mines does not mean the guards for the Scalesh inside left, the mine guards are just their biggest and fattest to intimidate the workers but are easily outnumbered twenty-to-one," she goes on, completely taking over our war council with her insight and expertise. "Out of Hitome, Billy, and Sasha, Sasha should take her partner with the male Scalesh into the mine and Angel with his as well out of the other team, the workers inside are numerous but ill-equipped for the task so there will be needless casualties without intervention from outside. There will be little if any enemies outside the mine after Zai's initial sulfur, but don't let your guard down because the necromancer's minions hidden in tunnels and cellars underground could survive and escape their warrens- because they will be your first encounter with reanimated dead, they will be low level skeletons and zombies that are more numerous than dangerous but they gold mines should be empty of them so you can retreat inside for reinforcements from the miners if needed. The easiest ways to kill undead is destroying the head, spine, or with fire, the zombies are rotting and releasing light noxious gasses like methane and so on so will burn rather quickly while skeletones would be easier to just smash.

"I can't begin to fathom what the actual boss fight will be like but don't be surprised if he has multiple tricks and treats and maybe even a second phase," she says as the elevator comes to a stop to let us all out, once again switching topics. "If the game makes them into a real boss with a second phase, then it will be spec'd by the group rating and not just the strongest member which will probably require all of you to take him down with shared magical knowledge. Professor Harlen has hinted at it to all of you, but I am going to come out and say it with, the in-game gods love screwing with players. They were made to assess the individual players and challenge not only their weaknesses but everything they consider a strength in exchange for the attention and favor of the gods who test you. None of you have even looked at your alignment stats or the prayer systems, this is an entire facet of the game you are overlooking that could help you throughout the game as much as your own magic because the gods have been toying with you since session one."

"Are the gods why i got hurt on my piece of the ship?" Emma asks suddenly as most of us take our seats at the table to wait for our pre-ordered food, sounding very displeased by this revelation that suddenly made me reconsider my original hip injury and how it seemed i had just simply fallen.

"Yes," Arielle replies, looking as if she missed the coffee cup she had throw away before taking her seat. "At least once a session at least one god will do something, whether it be a vague slip of the hand or a more obvious coconut falling from a tree nearby, and depending on how you deal with the circumstance will determine if you acquire that god's further attention and favor. I think it's obvious that many of you have some level of favor with one or more gods due to how progressive and overall well your gameplay has been in such a relatively short time, so you would do well to look into the divinity aspects of the game after you log in. Until then, now would be the perfect opportunity to come clean about any magics you have been hiding from each other."

"I've been working on a Flashbang spell," Julia says first, surprising the group for the seoncd time in two days. "Magic is like... a universal potential energy that can be used with or as all forms of energy, i have been using it as light and to reflect actual light to make a flash as well as an amplified snap or clap for a sonic addition like the grenade we have here in reality. It's not an attack, per se, so an enemy's aura shouldn't really defend against it like Zai was telling us about in condensing last night unless they are anticipating it or something."

"Surrounded by enemies, Zai could definitely take advantage of a radial stun attack," Harold says gratefully on my behalf for Julia's contribution as the service drones begin bringing our food to the table, probably trying to make up for keeping his defensive buff to himself and his repeat favorites. "Alongside my Airskin i have been working on other 'skin' variants, like sand and water and fire or even plasma, but actual stone or wood takes a lot of magic and time to break apart and rebuild as a physical barrier. Now, though, i have been working on something of a psychic variation, a telekinetic buffer of super condensed aura like's Zai's practice but instead of it being the way your aura is shaped and stabilized but actual spent energy that will ward off equal or lesser while weakening a greater attack. It's basically just a cloak or swirl of energy around the edge of your aura, but my issue is making it last longer than a couple of minutes or two without taking half of my energy."

"You won't," Arielle cuts in from behind a hand hiding her mouth full of egg fried rice. "The method you are using is a physics manuever where you turn into a portion or turn away from the greater mass of a moving force- such as a football tackle or a basketball screen- and is less of a shield blocking the brunt of impact and more of a parrying redirection of their spell from which you can counter with reflected energy or your own spell. An actual non-elemental shield would be something like a projection of your aura instead of a swirl or rotation of it, but the technical Ward practices start with the process that Zai has given everyone and from which the individual mage would develop more methods of defensive and offensive combat magic. Most mages in the game were born with magic and therefor grew up more or less relying on it, so your best bets would be to focus on defensive magic so that you can take the physical offensive where all but mages like officers and bosses would be relatively weak in strength or skill."

Individual methods of defensive and offensive combat magic, i echo in my head as Billy goes on to talk about his bonding with the Scalesh and uncovering one of their more closely guarded magics such as the healing hands that had been used on me. I've already figured out how to redirect my EMF more or less permanently to change its size or shape, and Telekinesis makes my aura substatial enough to interact with physical objects, so it's not impossble to shape my aura into things like weapons and materialize them with phsychic or elemental magics like my golems or Harold's skins, potentially even something more armor-like to increase itse defensive properties in diffusing enemy magic.I could probably even maintain individual aspects, like a telekinetic weapon and sonic shield to sheer away an enemy aura and ward off their spells while using armor pieces of Plasma- especially while under the affects of something like ether or the Perpetual Elixir, using my displaced movements to evade and corral before buffing up with Magewear and Rush to pick them off one at a time.

"Magewear," i say suddenly, interrupting the current conversation about healing magics that revolved around healing energy and Magic Scalpel concentrated through the hands like the Scalesh. "Auric weapons and armor, temporary and permanent based on premeditative manipulation of your aura or in-the-moment conjuring, manifested presently in the forms of sound waves, psychic energy, and elementalism. Specialized Ward spell."

"Wow, that wasn't even two minutes," Arielle says, the first to recover from my suddenly blurted magic. "Show of hands, who else was trying to make a spell out of what i had said?" Harold, Hitome, Julia, and Maxine all raised their hands. "That's the difference, people," she says at last, mostly done with her plate of Chinese food for breakfast.

"We know," several overlapping voices said at the same time, rendering one another unrecognizeable because i was busy upending my smoothie and ignoring the chilly tremor of brainfreeze. Hitome must have been one of them, though, because she quickly said, "I was just working out how to use psychic energies. Is it legit just a whoosh?"

"I'm beginning to think psychic energy is our EMF," i reply with a shrug. "I literally use my aura to grab stuff and call it Telekinesis, so then why would not the energy of our EMF be psychic energy itself? Psychic abilities are things like what my Particle allows me to do, which is non-magically break down myself and other matter to reconstruct to replace or transport among other things or manipulating the flame from Ignition- including the act of using magic to amplify friction and gather air and replace actual fuels which is pyrokinesis. Freeze is literally a manifestation of psychokinesis, the godfather of psychic powers because it's pretty much every psychic ability available from prescience to telepathy to manipulating matter and energy itself in the various aspects of pyro- and telekinesis or so on. It's not that we're magies, we're just psychics who use our minds or bodies or both."

"The difference," Arielle states once again. "That's pretty much proprietary information right there. Everybody should just about be done eating by now," she adds warningly, looking about the table at everyone who had only halfway cleared their plates. Everyone was soon done, spending the next two minutes in silence finishing as much of their food as they could before getting up uninvited with their trash.

Back in the elevator a few moments later, Ms. Arielle says, "The premise of magic in the game is that the mortal races there evolved from special forms of residual cosmic radiation with something of an extra lobe in the bottoms of the brains around the stem and among the synapses just like our Cynapses here in reality that allow them to tap into the planet's magnetic fields and radiations as psychics and manipulate the world around them as such. The differences between magic and psychic powers being you can't reanimate just a corpse instead of the actual person or the actual person and maintain them without an outside source like a gem full of power or some form of perpetuator that simulates life and produces its own EMF for extended periods of time like an automaton or, for another example, can distort the actual flow of time over a certain area instead of telepathically overloading somebody's senses to freeze them or slow them down."

"She just fed us several different new types of magic," i remind the group of what she had been doing this entire time, devoting my current mental capacity to pre-designing a permanent EMF for protection whose aspects i could augment with the actual Magewear applications. "I'm going to be zoned out for a minute, so everybody else here needs to stay on their toes."

"Oh, so you're just going to ignore everything we say, now?" Arielle asks, feigning offense with her cup of coffee over her heart. "How rude."

"Priorities," is the only thing i say in response, almost reflexively falling into a mild meditative state while staring out through the glass of the elevator doors without blinking and remembering how the individual currents of me energy actually felt like. I could actually see my aura in my head, its current compacted form reaching out for over thirty feet from my body in the emptiness of my mind behind the image of Harware floors falling in and out of view, but working the compressed flows in my head without actually having them at my disposal was a slow and unsteady process as the voices of the elevator drifted far off into the distance. I was just forking on the folded and overlapping layers of a leather-like body armor similar to my own armor when the stopping of the elevator jolts me from my reverie and i reflexively step forward before the doors even open to almost walk into the slowly sliding glass doors in my complete lack of awareness.

"Wow..." Arielle says in astonishment, stepping out of the elevator ahead of me to examine my face and body as if something might actually be wrong with me. Only for her to ask, "Back on planet Earth? Good, now wipe your eyes, it looks like you've been crying. Geez, you and the professor are a lot more alike that i thought, i should have known better than to think you were actually blinking. Where'd you go?"

"Outside of myself," i say honestly but briskly, hurrying around Doc's assistant and down the hallway after holding up the rest of the group for long enough. I could not get back to that meditative state, but if the replicated memory was anything like the real thing i would be able to manage a full suit of something similar to my own armor in the game. However, trying to reach that state of martial zen again kept me occupied enough that the walk to the operating room passed by in what felt like only a minute or two.

*

My A-frame had been made somewhat spacious for only one person, but waking up to find Issa asleep in my shelter with me was more than a little shocking before the sudden surprise of sitting up with only a slight roll that sent Spot and i tumbling from the side of my bed and onto the floor with mixed swears and chatters. Pushing myself up from where i had landed in a push-up position with Spot dangerously beneath me squirming about under the coat we had been using as a blanket, i glare for a moment at Issa who was sitting up blearily in my bed and clutching the edge of a quilted chitter pelt blanket until i notice that she had a blanket of six large chitter pelts laced together around the edges with thick bindings of furry cordage. Standing upright and surveying the camp, i see that not only was my shelter for some reason completed with a whole roof of cane halves but that the others' shelters bore adornments of things like weapons bundled in furs as well as large, strange looking fish like a warped mix between a grouper and a flounder freshly roasting over the fire by several male Scalesh.

Walking around behind my shelter to see what changed might have been made to the Scalesh encampments around our own, i see that the male Scalesh were all already awake before the rising of the sun not even halfway over the ocean in the distance beyond my starting island and all of them were now wearing proper leather armor suits not unlike the beta team's armors with bronze wiring all throughout and full-faced helmets almost exactly like my own except for the oblong ends of their visor slits allowing for their much larger eyes and field of view. Across every male's back was a sword mirroring the ones i had made for the beta team that looked like mighty two-handed weapons on their bodies with longer and thicker versions of my daggers at one hip while every other hip bore either one of my picks or hatchets as their secondary weapons sets. Their shelters remained unchanged, but beyond them at the edge of the slab i could see Issa's mother overseeing the construction of small portable mounted crossbows like roman scorpios and larger stationary versions that looked like they were fitted for the barges and all of them were made with my secondary under-bow concept for more repetitive firing better innovated by the Scalesh.

"You... not happy," Issa's softly hissing voice states from behind where i stood among the Scalesh work crews. "War... i do not know, but war... i-s what you know, now i know... too. Bad?"

"I'm not unhappy, I'm just surprised," i reply placatingly, turning around to face the young goblin shaman who was now adorned in an armored gown similar to Hitome's with solid bronze brelting instead of mixed metal and leather about the chest and sleeves as well as missing the exposure because of Issa's reptilian lack of cleavage that made for a thickly woven plate of bronze and iron wiring over her chest. On one hit was a personally intricate wakizashi with a bronze wrapped tang and on the other a poiniard sword like the males, but across her back in place of a large katana-style sword was instead a cane crossbow and leather sleeve of over a dozen bolts. "You've all been working so hard, probably all night, and we need to head out to the gold mine today. Are you guys going to be able to work your barge after all of this?"

"Half s-leep on... bar-sh... half wake when i s-leep," is her somewhat rational response in lazy English. "Ink, mom, make our... cros-s-bow-s, Harl'd find... an-s-wer... you too la-z-y find. I make second... bar-rel... sh-oot magic, we give it thi-s mussh that and it sh-oot that s-o far. You have, too, all but... male-s... have, male-s think throw or sh-oot is fearful. Weak. For... female-s. You all not think, you all have."

"We're gonna have to do another mind-mix thing for you to fix that broken English or so i can speak in your language," i sigh tiredly, reaching out to muss the young goblin's thick, hard quills for hair whose sharp ends had once been clipped in captivity but were quickly growing back. "Until then, I'm absolutely ecstatic at all the hard work you guys have been putting in. I'll ride on your barge to help give you... female-s s-ome re-s-t," i add, teasing her for her hissing lisp and earning myself a false smile of sharp fangs. "Let's go get some breakfast."

"You break fa-s-t," she says, patting my arm in the same manner i pat her head as she walks passed me toward the scorpio crews. "I eat early, we get raft-s ready."

Returning to camp to find Harold and Hitome questioning the males- who regarded Harold with suspicion while openly enjoying Hitome's company- about the fish and where they could find more of something that smelled so deliciously and naturally salty, i return to my shelter to find my chests underneath rearranged to accommodate a weapons crate of canes lined with grasses into which were nestled not only a cane crossbow whose underbarrel simply bore a socketed smoky quartz stone and leather quiver already loaded with quarrels like Issa's but also a large buckler like the Scalesh male's but much larger to suit my body at the bottom alongside a what could only be Issa's rendition of a katana with over thirty inches of lightly scything blade from having been beaten blade down to form its spine. The katana was sheathed in an oaken scabbard darkened with fire hardened and superficially burned in etchings of strange, simplistic glyphs that did not glow but almost seemed to shimmer from faint energy that blurred the edges of the glyphes contained in thorning vines wrapping up and down about the scabbard already fixed on a braided bronze baldric to be worn over my shoulder under the crossbow and quive. If Issa has been more humanoid, she would have just become my first and foremost candidate for in-game marriage after i unsheathed the sword to find twin furrows down either side of one-and-a-half inches of spine exposing folded layers of two different steels that seemed to contain copper and tin each and caused bronze-steel welding among the layers with fully glowing glyphs running down between each furrow.

Whistling long and low in admiration, calling attention to my shelter from the camp of others who were inspecting their new gear and personal gifts from anyone with a bonded shaman, Hitome walks over wielding a pole-handled sword whose fifteen inches of handle were half the length of the weapon's actual curving edge. "I don't know which of the gods favored you enough to throw these people on our doorstep, Zai, but you changed the game for everybody yesterday," she says loudly and cheerfully, bearing a slate platter laden with fillets of roasted fish that she offers to me.

Sheathing the katana lined with numerous gradients of tempring and setting it on my bed with the other gifts from Issa, i open my menus with one hand while accepting a flaky fillet of steamy red fish meat and switch of to my settings to view the screen with my periphary until i single out the Alignment tab and open it. "All of them," i reply after finding my alignment to be in all neutral spectrums and a list of different gods with large octagonal descriptions and smaller octagonal ratings that all seven said 'Favor 15/100'. "Apparently, i have fifteen-love and i am chaotic neutral with bad sadistic qualities on top of honorable principles, and prayers... just examples, like dear whoever preserve me on my travels or in my battles or... wow. I'll give 'em all a shot later and see if anyone answers," i decide at last, deciding to beseech each god for some kind of blessing and see who actually responds. What about you?"

"Unlawfully neutral," she sighs, as if this were a bad thing. "And i only have fifteen with a few of them, the rest are five or zero. Apparently, I'm a manipulative seductress with vaguely legal morals even though i haven't actually broken any rules or laws, yet. Just flirted with guys to get nice things like most women in any game, but with you it kind of became a decent trade. I know you like that crystal sword."

"Shitome," i say with a faint smile. "Most of the times i have used it, i used it for the killing blow. My Japanese may be poor, but I think it means Finishing and that is a fitting name for the sword Hitome gave me. But, yes, i love it more than the sword that i made, so i just might carry only Shitome and... Hanran, Finishing Rebellion. Did i get it right?"

"No, not at all," she sighs. "You sound like a broken web translator. Individually, yes, together, no, just... no. What are you going to pray for? If we have a break session in between rebellions, I'm going to a nearby island to pray for my own mini-boss that i can either make a load of money off of in the future or make into another familiar. Hopefully a familiar because i plan on joining you for the long-run. I'm no soldier like Harold, but i have been trained to fight multiple targets at once since my teens and will be of more use on the front lines than playing politics and intimidation with our away team."

Finishing my entire first fillet to reach for another before speaking, i finally say, " As much as i probably should, i can't really afford to think beyond this session. By my calculations, it's forty-percent likely that the gold mine will send out an away team in time for us to attack at early dusk, thirty-percent chance we will have to wait until next session to attack, and thirty-percent likelihood we will actually run into their away team going to or coming from the silver mine. The bigger goblin barge and I are taking point in this mission for that likelihood, and i would greatly appreciate having you with me on the goblin barge today as much as i would having you on the front lines with me tomorrow."

"Do you do that on purpose?" Ms. Ariella suddenly asks, sitting atop Emma's shelter wearing what looked like cavalry armor with split plated skirts for sitting in a saddle over simple studded chaps below a chainmail bodiced leather jerkin not unlike my own but lightly hardened and adorned with scale-like studs overlapping one another on their way down to here waist. "Or are just naturally a lady's man, charming all the little ladies who pledge their fealty to you?"

"If i was aware of it like that, i would ask how else do you get women to swear fealty," i reply as only half a joke, making both Arielle and Hitome laugh. "Honestly, no, i have always had this thing, growing up around a bunch of older people in school or work and so on, where i have to say the best sounding thing possible every time i talk because of... expectation... if not, people get disappointed."

"Ah, he's a conditioned lady's man," Harold says loudly from where he was eavesdropping on the conversation by the fire. "I always knew there was something i liked about him. That's the difference, people!"

"Oh, no... it's spreading," Arielle says in mock horror, hopping down from Emma's shelter to walk over to the fire where fish was being served with praisable catering from the once enslaved Scalesh. "We had an intern a few years ago who was working under the professor and I, after taking him around the building helping people work on issues in development or implementation he would start making these jokes about the difference between us plebes and geniuses like Professor Harlen. The intern is now a full-time employee of rank, and was the previous record holder for fastest magic unlock so is obviously one of the top players right now. Zai doesn't even factor into the top one thousand, yet, and there's plenty of employees around the world who play, but his IQ is still over genius and he's the new record holder so i felt like the punch line still fit."

Finishing my second fillet as the conversation continues around me, i start putting on my armor as Emma says, "What's the difference between a genius and a plebe? Being retired at twenty-five! Seriously, though, we all came into this game ready to kick ass, and we all did, but the difference between us is the game itself targeting you. We can skate by on a slow difficulty rating, somebody like Zai gets hit every other session with one test after another- and, if not, he goes out looking for it."

"Can we not talk about me like this?" I ask awkwardly while tucking the hem of my jerkin into the high waist of my leggings before steaming my mask clean and putting it on while it was still dryer warm. "I like you guys, i really do, but i'm getting that butt-of-a-bad-joke feeling and, for me, that's usually followed by a carrey-at-prom kind of feeling. So, for the sake of our continued friendship and your lack of a grudge against me for spawn-killing you all day, let's all start getting ready to go. The Scalesh were up all night putting together an armory and armaments for the barges, and they're getting ready to go as we speak so let's not dally ourselves. I want everybody on their toes today, just tell yourself that the second we leave this island we've already entered enemy waters and there could be a ship of pirates or smugglers around every bend."

"We like you, too, Zai," Maxine calls from the far side of the fire at the same time that her own possible lover, Angel, beside her calls out in a fake fangirl scream, "we love you, Zai!"

Ignoring the ensuing conversation with Arielle about what working with the professor was like, i take my iron sword and its sheathe from my weapons belt to move all of my daggers to one side before making a braided leather belt on which to affix my old sword to give to Issa to wear alongside her crossbow. Affixing my new quiver to the outside of my katana's scabbard, i put on my coat to shoulder the forty-plus inches of sword on its baldric before wearing my crossbow along beside its quiver before finally summoning up my magic to turn the roof of my shelter into a side wall of cane halves at one side for its of privacy and protection from the side of the beta barge and loading the A-frame bed with my chests of belongings and pot of ether. Getting all of my belongings out to the marina for the Scalesh to load up took nearly all of my aura, but a quick drink from the lid of my severely drained ether pot had me more than recharged enough to return to camp and help break down the storage shelter into two smaller buildings to divide between the barges our armory and food stocks.

The Scalesh buildings, surprisingly, came apart with ease in portions of walls and roofs that they carried off to the marina, leaving behind bundles of bedding and personal affects to come back and collect around the same time that we finished sorting through and transporting the contents of the storage building, but it soon turned out that the Scalesh had already gone about acquiring their own stockpiles of food and a functional armory of weapons and armor augments. However, their larger raft was more than able to accommodate everything that our suddenly shoddy barge could not after the Scalesh had used the portions of their original structures to not only wall and roof their barge but increase its bouyancy by adding the rest to the bottom. This once sub-sentient species was starting to really make us look like amateurs.

At every corner of each raft was stationed a large scorpio behind a short portion of layered cane wall that was capable of barreling two spears on either line, and each wall on either side of either corner was full height to create something of a parapet appearance with two smaller, portable scorpios at the two shortened front walls on either side of a middle full wall and parapets for each oar station guarded by a portable scorpio. At every scorpio station was a barrel of sorts made from cane and bearing the long shafts of glass and quartzite headed spears to load into each armed and ready defense. What surprised more more than the crushed cane privacy curtains on the beta barge or the large central cabin on the barge, though, was that my old raft was not only still around but also walled all of the way around my A-frame and belongings tied onto the back of the Scalesh war barge with windows on either copper-plated wall as well as front and back portholes for oars once the main door and front wall of the raft was raised shut.

After almost an hour of transporting and securing, both barges were finally being pushed out onto the water by magic where we caught slowly on the current and began drifting inland, testing out the settling of the new walls additions to the rafts once we were on the water before slowly taking up oars to build speed while the Scalesh night shift went to sleep in their cabin. Even though i was on their barge and bonded with their technical leader, probably because of that as well, the Scalesh males refused to let me row with them and instead had me go around the raft patrolling the four main defenses at which bonded shamans eagerly waited to put their inventions to the test. I did not mind the fact that i did not have to row, but after being repeatedly hissed and clicked at for stopping and taking a seat to do some meditation i was beginning to get more than a little bit annoyed with the male Scalesh who would do much better to fear me than govern me.

Issa eventally found me looking for somewhere to hide, coming out of the barge's cabin to end my useless pacing about the cabin which was the only area of privacy on the barge and lead me by the hand out to the back of the barge where she magically draws in my raft. "You... Med-tate, stop walking. Too loud, tell males... Issa," she starts to say in her own language before softly uttering several hisses broken by a single click. "If see boat, let know, now go," she adds after making me repeat the clicked hisses back to her, unceremoniously shoving me toward the lowered back wall of the barge that bridged the gap to my raft's lowered front wall.

Alone at last as i lie down on my A-frame bed where Spot was already napping after closing up the raft, i let my mind wander into emptiness before finding myself before my mind's eye much as i had done by accident in the elevator and immediately set to work manipulating my aura. The hardest part was individualizing my currents and pulling one end free of the cycle of my EMF through its sources to float freely like strands of rope in nothingnessuntil i could finally start winding them one at a time or in groups about my body in an altogether new parrter of overlapping coils winding about my body to make up layers upon layers of solid-like pieces about my body like a woven padded jerking of amber and amethyst light studded with tightly folded and flattened plates of energy like real plate armor over a similar set of plated greaves and leggings. About my hands flowed large clawed gauntlets of that flared back over sleeves from which protruded long, curving blades of pyschic energy under the elbows, from my knees rose shorter versions of my elbow blades, down my back flowed a ridge of downward curving blades between one wing of amber feathers marred with jagged lines of bright amethyst and another of amethyst scales run through with dark amber filigree that mirrored the sides of a bladed tail that coiled about the floor of the raft at my feet.

Roughly two hours had passed since i entered the dim cabin my raft had become by the time i completed my auric armor with a draconic head whose mouth opened in fourway mandibles about my face at random, no boat had been sighted yet out on the waters but i probably never would have noticed as i watched the body my aura had become work its jaws or twitch its wings and tail at relative random as if it were a living entity and somewhat restless. Opening the front wall of my raft when i could no longer see the sun from inside after collecting my sheathed dragon spines to wear on either side of Shitome on the hip opposite my daggers, i pull myself back to the lowered wall of the barge with Spot riding on my shoulder and reboard the barge while wondering if any of the others could see what my eight-foot tall Dracomancer aura looked like in its new super-condensed combat form. The female Scalesh about the barge i started pacing again quickly took notice of my new body of magic, leaving their stations with little regard for the annoyed clicks and hisses of their male counterparts who naturally took their current circumstances very seriously and wanted all positions manned even though the shamans wanted to poke and prod at my aura and even experimentally cast small bits of fire or Plasma at me to watch the fire wimply wash around me like a rock in a stream or sizzle away with a vague mist of my auric colors from singing the surface of a single scale in my aura with Plasma.

Even though my aura did have a tendency to move on its own, i soon realized i would have to develop of muscle memory reflex for its manipulation after becoming annoyed by the lag-like affect of my aura simply standing in place as i walked around until i awkwardly made it walk in time with myself as i adjusted to its larger gait. The wings and tail were the hardest part, flapping them generated no actual wind but their movement seemed to have a passive psychic levitation affect that made my steps take longer as i almost seemed to glide over the raft for a few more feet of distance than usual while the tail moved almost independant of me entirely as it adjusted constantly for both my and my aura's balance with a similar lessening of gravity to my wings for either side that it teetered to. It was not long, however, before i could use my aura to augment my physical motions in full, flapping once with my wings while leaping forward to glide through the air for half of the length of the barge while vaguely brushing the ceiling of the barge for a brief second even with Spot clinging to my chest.

Issa enjoyed experimenting on my aura more than the other shamans, targeting a single plate in my greaves on which to expend most of her own aura in different, growing spells that only succeed into pitting the psychic plating's surface with smoke furrows and vague bends until the regeneration of my aura repaired my psychic armor. She would have kept going, but my ether pot was safely tucked away in my raft which meant that she needed to recharge naturally before she could carry on with her experiments that i felt certain would only get worse and worse until she finally succeeded in injuring me. Considering there were five other shamans on board that were more than capable healers before being bonded by the other beta members, i honestly might have let Issa keep going until i finally did get hurt just to see my own defensive limits with my new aura.

Not long after i was just learning to actually hover several inches off of the floor of the raft with, though, a friendly and familiar voice ruins everything by breaking my concentration with, "Most people don't learn how to condense their aura until after they face another mage, whose aura was usually compacted or they discovered a thickened patch of aura was more protectve than natural EMF, but you discovered how to defensively condense your aura out of stealth needs in the your first week and in the beginning of your second you discover how to animate your EMF with enough auric substance to interact with the planet's EMF on a metaphysical level which allows you to defy gravity. Angel would be jealous," Ariella adds from where she sat on one of three ladders on the sides of the goblin cabin that lead up to the roof of the barge above the cabin.

"The difference," i say dryly before she can drop the punchline herself, flapping my wings one hard time and jumping straight up to soar out of the trapdoor in the ceiling where i lean back into a slow flip that allows the barge to pass under me before i land in a tight crouch above the center of the raft. Most of the islands around us were at least twice the size that i was used to, meaning that we had traveled father than i had anticipated in much less time than i had expected with noon itself still three or so hours above the sun's path as Ariella climbed up onto the roof behind me. Spot was not pleased with my behavior, leaping down to the roof from inside my coat and scampering toward Arielle for safety as i say, "The others are not that far behind, and i would not be surprised if someone like Hitome or Harold that needed her back on the beta barge are probably already working on developing their auric gear. Doc never actually gave me proprietary information, but he kept me in the know when something was coming up, so... may i know if we are going to run into an early away team?"

"Oh, yeah," she replies with a little excitement in her voice. "If it's a possibility, you already know the in-game gods are going to throw it at you, and we're about halfway to the gold mine so it shouldn't be too much longer before we see the shiny plating of an enemy vessel in the distance- especially since the Scalesh are using the same path their ship took to the silver mine instead of going around and straight to the gold mine."

"Then that means they left the gold mine at about the same time we did, so the goblin shipment was expected back last night," i reason with myself, looking out into the distance ahead of the raft. "The islands in this area are getting way bigger, meaning we're well in outlaw territory, so anything we do can't go higher than a hundred feet for risk of drawing notice... and i can't just go out and sink the boat because they probably have a Scalesh rowing team we could bolster our forces with. I was hoping we would catch them more on our side than theirs, then the Scalesh barge could have tanked the damage, but seeing goblins manning the ballistae and scorpios will only tip them off that we're not likely friends or loot. We'll have to rearrange the barges, put the beta in front and let the goblins lag behind a bit with some people on their front ballistae to make us look more numerous in people, if we play our cards right we can get the smugglers to parley with me riding out on my private raft to avoid an all-out fight and once I'm on their ship it'll be over any way."

"Did you really just say parley?" Arielle asks with a groan. "This isn't the Caribbean sea, Zai, this is a video game that wants you dead. What makes you think an outlaw vessel would stop and have a chat with a couple of floating trash barges?"

"The dragon sitting on the roof of whichever barge was in front," i reply, deciding to rearrange my plans just a little as i start toward the nearest trapdoor in the roof. "This one is more heavily outfitted, so we'll keep it in front and man the main guns with people to make it look like a human vessel. It's not like i really think of myself as super powerful, but i know we are two boats to one and at least twice as many overall combatants no matter how you look at it, and they have more pressing concerns to consider. They have a missing crew, we have two armed vessels, they could just assume it was us but anyone with a tactical mind would want to know how many of us there are because if its coordinated enough for us to meet on the water then we must not be the only patrols in the area for our faction- a possible smuggling rival or someone here to take out the outlaws like we really are, but they can't know that until they find out for sure and a possible rival could be worked with considering their ties to such a strong piracy group."

"And here i was wanting to watch stuff go boom," Arielle sighs tiredly, climbing back down her ladder as i drop down into the goblin barge. "But, nooo, the problem child wants to handle things with subterfuge and politics before making everybody go boom."

"I figured that was why you were suddenly on my boat," i challenge with a grin as i walk around to her side of the cabin. "A fight was going to take place soon and you wanted the best seat in the house where you could keep me distracted from formulating a strategy to get things over with as quickly and quietly as possible because you want a big drawn out siege at the gold mine. Don't you?"

"I wouldn't... not... like a long drawn out battle," she replies with a vague and falsely innocent shrug. "I'm not really allowed to do all that much unless the gods target me for being here, but the more that goes on the more i can get to do. As Professor Harlen's personal assistant, i don't even get the same one session a day average every other employee gets because i work those serious hours- and i joined this company because gaming is life. Now, i get to log in for a job for the next couple of days but i can't really do anything?! I hate my life some times."

"Issa!" I call out for my companion who had retired to the barge's cabin with the night shift before walking over and distractedly patting Arielle on the head as if she were my familiar. "You'll have plenty to do in another session or two," i reassure her before turning toward the back of the barge and walking away as i hear Issa clicking the Scalesh equivalent of oaths and swears as she climbs down from her cane hammock, "don't forget, the beta splits into two teams before the rebellion starts in full. One team for war and one team for peace, and you're going to have to jump between either group constantly as our omnipotent. Hey, Issa, go around and spread the word to stop rowing? We need to talk with the other barge because we might make contact soon and need to get ready."

"But i still won't be allowed to carry weapons," Arielle continues complaining as she follows me and Issa wordlessly hurries off in the opposite direction after i sense explorative impulses of her mind in my own. "If i get attacked, i can draw one from my void, but i can't walk around with any of them because you guys might copy the enchantments. My armor isn't even enchanted, it's just basic skin and metal. Nice skin and metal, but basic skin and metal."

"Oh woe is you," i tease with a shrug. "Just break it down and remake it imbued with your own magic to increase its stats, with no actual enchantment for us to copy you'll be fine. Same as weapons, we have plenty of iron and I'm sure you have plenty of magic, Expert."

"Ice cold," Arielle remarks as we reach the back wall of the barge that i lower once again before waving to the front corner gunners on the beta barge to get the rest of the beta team's attention. "I'll make do with what I've got, don't worry."

"You have omnipotent information, if you couldn't make do then i think you would need to switch to puzzle games," i reply with a wicked grin over my shoulder as the goblin barge begins slowing to the speed of the current, flapping my new wings and leaping high up out of the barge to sink slowly and carefully down onto the roof of my raft. Wondering if any of the others could see my aura as i notice both Julia and Brittany in the front corner scorpio seats with condensed auras, i flap several times throughout my next jump to continue rising slowly into the air before leaning forward into a shallow dive with my wings stretched out but slightly cupped to catch the air passing through them so that i glide with gaining speed for the beta raft where i flap once sharply to lift my momentum by only a few inches before coming down hard in a kneel. Shaking my head as i work my knee to loosen it from the shock of landing, i look around for any trapdoors in the roof only to find that this roof did not ovver any positions for lookouts or sunbathing like the reptilian barge which forced me to finally take control of my serpentine taile and use it to grip the edge of the roof and lower myself down around the front left scorpio in front of Brittany.

Harold and most of the others were already waiting for me just inside the ship after having stopped rowing after the males on the vessel ahead had done so to drift closer to one another, but it did not seem like anyone could see my new EMF which saddened me just a little as i said, "We're moving faster than i thought we would, and a few other factors have come up in our surroundings that i can't quite put my finger on, but i feel like the game is about the throw us in a fight. Chances are, the silver mine shipment was expected back the same day, which means they would have sent a search out to check for complications this morning around the time we left or not long after, so it's likely we will run into the outlaw away team we were planning to wait on leaving. If we get into a ranged fight out here, we'll use up our sulfur stock and-or leave them open to launch some kind of signal to the gold mine telling them their in a fight and raise all defenses for us when we get there."

"You... want us to take the front so if we run into any people they see people and not Scalesh?" Harold asks after a few seconds of murmuring among the rest of the group. "Or you want us to go side-by-side and fill all lanes of fire in the channel at once to put the scorpios to the test?"

"I was going to say two volunteers come over to the Scalesh barge and take the front guns for the same reason, but an abreast formation would be an excellent show of power," i admit thoughtfully. "My plan is to present ourself as an obvious second-thoughts kind of group to outright attack, if we fill the canal lanes it will force a standoff in which i can signal for a parley of sorts with the enemy and, once I'm there, i can scope out their ship for any Scalesh to avoid hurting before we start hurling magic spears at the enemy. If they have no goblin rowers, then i can just launch myself off their ship to signal you guys to test out the scorpios, but if they do and they can't simply jump overboard to signal the assault then we will have to board and take the vessel. All we should need are the front facing scorpios of either vessel, that's going to have to be three of us on either vessel with Scalesh for help reloading while those of us with shamans sieze the vessel."

"We go with your plan all the way," Harold agrees in excess. "If we can force a parley, we can use the entire time you're rowing out to get an underwater team in place around the boat. Forget the scorpios, we can get the Scalesh a real boat by taking whatever they're riding, and having one of their ships gives us your perfect entrance. We'll park their boat and the rafts on the far side of an island behing the gold mine mountain and trek it on foot from there to the outlaw island where the rest of us can get into position on the mountain and signal Zai with like a mirror or something to bring their ghost ship to port. From there, Zai can destroy everything but their boats to draw the enemy away from the fort and then the Scalesh have the start of their own navy."