Sword Art Online Crystal Pouch Sword Art Online Potion Pouch
Fairy Dance of Decease [Sword Fine art Online AU] - Out-of-Combat Thread Rez
- Thread starter Catsy
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- #two,176
The one on «Power Delegation»?My day is over and I'm super-crispy, so hither'due south my side of a random conversation I but had with my dominate while we were playing with a readabiity analysis tool:
...
(3:22:09 PM) bbannerman: I only fed information technology the epigraph of the virtually recent affiliate.
...
Should be «Projects » .core functions such as police force enforcement, alliances, and urban center/faction projects (q.v. «Projects). Considering of
- #2,177
No. Coincidentally plenty, though:The one on «Ability Delegation»?
Affiliate 48 epigraph said:"«Projects» allow faction and guild leaders—or any other players to whom the appropriate powers have been granted—to change, improve, or maintain a property or service nether their authoritative control. Combining elements of both quests and crafting recipes, and managed through either the «Assistants» carte du jour or an NPC agent such as an architect, projects have ane or more than resources as input to produce a divers effect. Most projects are repeatable and remain available until canceled or completed, but some are limited in duration or recurrence, or otherwise have special weather for appearing. The about common and cheap projects are used to brand simple corrective changes to an endemic property or influence the items stocked by metropolis NPC vendors, but more advanced projects requiring significant resource investment can add together new metropolis services, create or alter persistent structures, or fifty-fifty unlock quest chains with rare or unique rewards..."
—Alfheim Online manual, «Projects»
- #2,178
My day is over and I'1000 super-crispy, then here'south my side of a random conversation I just had with my dominate while we were playing with a readabiity assay tool:[...](3:22:forty PM) bbannerman: Readability scores:Flesch: 22.78Fog: 21.77Flesch-Kincaid: 19.21SMOG: 0Dale-Chall: xi.69Fry: 15 Percentage of Hard Words (Estimated):1769%
(three:23:03 PM) bbannerman: Class level 19.21
(3:23:06 PM) bbannerman: I don't think that's a thing
[...]
What :'D
Is this tool open source? What do you work on, if I may inquire (cause the situation seems like an opportunity)? I work on nomenclature and extraction NLP systems, and so this'south interesting in more than ane way :T
- #2,179
Wow, that is dense.No. Coincidentally enough, though:
Since apparently anyone can become a gild leader who has 10k Yuld (and "optionally" one friend willing to bring together), that's not equally restrictive every bit information technology might first appear.Chapter 48 epigraph said:"«Projects» allow faction and lodge leaders—or any other players to whom the appropriate powers accept been granted—
So who's going to be edifice, or rebuilding, what? Or is this office of an explanation of how the Sandmen customized their dungeon?
- #2,180
Information technology is, but it'due south for a part of the game that's only actually going to go touched on by experienced players who are trying to exercise something special anyway.
It's not intended to be restrictive, per se. Information technology just means that if a gild owns property, or has gained control of an NPC service (i.eastward. hired an NPC to perform services for the social club), they accept a mechanism for making changes.Since apparently anyone can become a lodge leader who has 10k Yuld (and "optionally" one friend willing to join), that'south not as restrictive equally information technology might commencement appear.
It'south related to the latter, only information technology's actually bigger than just that.So who's going to be building, or rebuilding, what? Or is this part of an explanation of how the Sandmen customized their dungeon?
Since the mechanic is undocumented, players generally can't know exactly where a mob'southward spawn signal is placed, and the game does non naturally convey factions in a direction that would necessitate building outside of their home urban center, pretty much no one knows this, or has ever been in a position to observe information technology. The Sandmen only have done because their unique state of affairs necessitated basing out of a dungeon, and over time they noticed that areas they fully furnished or built out stopped spawning mobs.
Once this mechanic is widely known, information technology has enormous implications, not least for the taking and holding of territory.
- #ii,181
- #2,182
Not in canon. I don't know if the author's said anything about FDoD avatars though.At that place'southward something I've been wondering near the SAO (and by extension the FDoD!ALO) avatars. Do you think they age during the game? Manifestly they aren't directly updated copies of the players (otherwise virtually of them would probably start to resemble corpses after a while), simply do you call back in that location'due south some sort of aging mechanic that goes on/
- #2,183
- #ii,184
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Had ALO been designed to do so, Kirito imagined he could probably have seen that hunger meter hovering over everyone's heads aslope their HP bar—or, now that he idea of it, any number of other biological metrics that could've been faux, but were probably ameliorate off not. Thinking about what might have been in a game world informed by different influences or background material, he was abruptly very glad Kayaba had not been a role player of that older sandbox game his female parent used to like—the one where the objectives seemed to be to build houses and torture NPCs in them, or at to the lowest degree wreck their marriages. Or worse, some kind of moving-picture show or other licensed IP tie-in. If Kayaba had needed funding really badly—
Both thoughts were too horrible to contemplate, specially in the face of such an amazing banquet.
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Back to the piece of work week tomorrow, but 1 segment at to the lowest degree is substantial plenty that I promise to be able to share information technology soon. Going to brand some other good push at that this week.
- #2,185
A reference to Sims, or some such?... he was abruptly very glad Kayaba had not been a histrion of that older sandbox game his mother used to similar—the one where the objectives seemed to be to build houses and torture NPCs in them, or at least wreck their marriages.
- #2,186
I personally thought it was Minecraft until I read the marriage part; with it though, that definitely sounds like The Sims. It too makes me glad that Catsy probably has enough sense non to have Kirito and Asuna "get married" in FDoD. I could see certain circumstances that they would exercise so (needing the status to equip certain special items or using it to make certain the other kept important rare drops, etc.) as long as practicality was emphasized as much every bit the fact that they cared for each other and no ane took information technology seriously. I'grand also hoping that if Yui pops up, that she regards Kirito and Asuna more like how Penny sees Yoruko (though honestly, since that would be a little repetitive, I could run into Yui just beingness overlooked; which would definitely improve things in my heed since I've only seen one fanfic deal with Yui well).A reference to Sims, or some such?
- #2,187
In fairness, I haven't yet revealed or hinted at enough pieces that i could reasonably put everything together. Merely some of the hints are there, particularly later the concluding few chapters.
- #2,188
- #2,189
Some of that: players showtime at character-level 1 with two open skill slots (in addition to whatever Extra Skills they get by their choice of faction), and get i more each at levels 10, xx, 30, etc.Hey Catsy, do you have any reference documents you could provide equally to how the skill system works? Exemple: skills list, starting corporeality of skill slot at level one then at which level do the player become new 1? Maximum amount of skill, etc?
Skill levels get-go at 0 and max out at g. From the terminal chapter:
Weeks of grinding in one day, indeed, Mortimer thought in anaesthesia. You tin can get the kickoff 100 points of nearly skills in a matter of hours, a day at nearly—if you're doing nothing but grinding it. Even the adjacent 100'southward not so bad. After that, though… the wall rises college and higher as yous climb information technology.
- #two,190
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There was something viscerally disturbing to Yuuki about not beingness able to see her own body when she moved, even with an Imp's enhanced nighttime vision. Only the persistent «Transparency» effect that Rei was maintaining using some new trick was a necessary annoyance; not only would it provide visual concealment from other players, it would hide their cursors and make information technology harder for mobs to detect them as well.
But it was withal weird, and she didn't recollect it would ever stop being weird. Even when their surroundings were lite enough that she could see her easily every bit something other than faint outlines and whispers of texture, information technology made her feel similar a ghost.
A ghost in the machine, Yuuki thought, looking at the floor through the faint veil of her transparent palm. Wasn't there an erstwhile manga or something similar that? In a way, that'due south sorta what I am. If I always leave this globe, how much of me will actually be left out there?
"Constitute it," Rei said out loud, interrupting the morbid train of thought. Opacity spread across both of their avatars like a time-lapse of rust every bit she dropped the Transparency aura, revealing her standing beneath one of the many drainage outlets that ostensibly emptied into the sewers—the qualifier being that not one time yet had Yuuki seen any actual water coming out of any of them. The wastefulness in this climate, fake or not, would've struck her as odd if she had; briefly she wondered if real-world desert cities even had sewers at all, or if that was just a game thing.
Rei knelt and touched the basis at her feet; only and then did Yuuki notice what looked like a trio of paint dots splattered on the stone. They looked too evenly spaced to be anything other than intentional marks, but the consequence was unobtrusive plenty that Yuuki suspected it would probably seem similar just another part of the surroundings if someone weren't looking for information technology specifically.
Intentionally placed or not, the marks were apparently meaningful to Rei. Seeming satisfied, she rose, then gazed thoughtfully up the dark shaft, eyes lighting up with the stake green of the Searching result. "Clear equally can be. You ready?"
A wisp of prayer found its way to the forefront of her thoughts. God, please guide my hand this evening. Show me the righteous path, the path that will salve lives and stop the bad guys. Whatever'due south going on down here is probably pretty atrocious, and I only want to help. So… if at that place are people in trouble, use me as their sword and shield, and take my life instead of theirs if it comes to that. Amen.
Yuuki's eyes had only been airtight for a moment. When she opened them, no hesitation remained. "Ready as I'll e'er be."
Rei didn't seem to take any special note of the pause. "Alright. I need to cast Muffle now, but it's going to make u.s.a. nearly deafened and stop me from casting spells while information technology's on, so allow me go Transparency back up first. Futto yojikke, vayezule prelthe nibralth uthan."
Information technology was the second fourth dimension now that Rei had cast that new variation on Transparency, and as before nearly a 3rd of Rei's HP and MP bars grayed out as soon as the spell took event. She wasn't sure exactly what kind of magic tip Kumiko had provided to her companion, but information technology didn't seem to have a elapsing; information technology reminded her of something vague Asuna had written in passing most the new zone not long ago. Yuuki gave a sigh in one case she saw the texture of her avatar begin to dissolve like paper existence consumed by a flame.
Rei's clarification of the structure at the top of the disposal shaft had been spot-on. Yuuki hadn't seen any crafters build structures in a dungeon before, and hadn't even realized it was possible. She supposed there wasn't anything stopping anyone—and the proof was right there in front end of them, a system of ropes and pulleys suspended from a thick oaken crane arm and designed to raise and lower a modest platform. They were so pristine in comparison to their surroundings that there was no mistaking them for anything but a player add-on.
Said surroundings were lit by orelight crystals set like candlesticks into some kind of metallic sconce; they were white in color and cast a cold, steady low-cal that savage off sharply within a few meters. The light level was fine to her optics, but she suspected that anyone who wasn't an Imp would find it dim to the point of existence either creepy or cozy, depending on their mood.
Creepy, Yuuki idea as her eyes settled on a haphazard collection of unidentifiable equipment piled up in one corner, a medieval melange of wood and metallic parts that had no articulate purpose—but which independent just enough precipitous edges and chain segments to look similar castoffs from some mad inventor'due south workshop.
Definitely creepy.
Rei dropped the Muffle issue equally soon as they reached the meridian and confirmed they were lone, but left the Transparency aura on as both of them carefully searched the room with weapons fatigued. No 1 else was present, and when Yuuki squinted into the focus-to-infinity somatic shortcut that toggled on Searching, she saw no nearby player cursors, nor whatever mobs shut enough to be in danger of hearing or seeing them. "Looks clear."
A similar hue of light-green returned to Rei's eyes just long plenty for her to make the same pass, glowing faintly under the effect of Transparency but even so impossible to miss. Yuuki wasn't offended; there was always a hazard 1 of them would spot something the other didn't. She thought she saw the other Imp's caput move in a nod.
"Alright. Let'south meet what we've got hither, I saw them bringing upwardly one of these chests last night." Unmarked rectangular boxes crafted of some lightweight wood native to Salamander territory saturday in neat stacks off to 1 side; when Rei rapped at a few lightly with her knuckles, they gave off an empty repeat.
A few of the containers stood autonomously from the others. Yuuki ran her fingers along the edges of 1 until she found its lid, and found it unlocked. It was as empty as the other had sounded; in that location was no sign anything had e'er been stored in them.
"Nothing?"
Yuuki shook her head, though she wasn't sure Rei would see information technology. "Empty. Can't run into whatsoever wear. Far as I can tell, it's never been used."
"Same. Looks like all the action is over there."
Rei's gesture indicated a chamber-sized apse on the contrary side of the room. A storage rack on 1 wall held several polearms of unfamiliar blueprint; they were relatively short like bo staves, but each had a thin crescent moon blade that diffuse into spiked tines similar a tuning fork; from their well-maintained gleam they had to be histrion weapons rather than dungeon decorations.
Tucked upwards against the heart of the nook'due south back wall was a uncomplicated crafted hardwood table with every bit unassuming stools perched around it, ane end of the long tabular array poking out into the chief room. Like the other crafted furnishings information technology had a similar just-similar-new await to it, although it clearly saw use: a gear up of heavy atomic number 26 cuffs sabbatum off to one side, and a few crafting tools were arrayed in a fashion that suggested someone had stopped working with an intent to resume. Several mugs sat abandoned around an empty stein that had once contained a aureate liquid of some kind, judging by the dregs at the bottom.
"I'one thousand then tempted to toxicant that in case i of them comes back later to end it off."
Yuuki looked sharply in Rei'southward direction, aghast. The reaction prompted an immediate response. "Chill out, I'm non gonna do information technology. I don't want to leave whatsoever sign we were here if nosotros tin can help information technology, not still. Merely it's existent tempting all the same to burn one or two of of these assholes. You don't merely exit food out where someone can mess with it."
You don't, maybe. Not everyone is that paranoid, or has any reason to be when they're in their domicile. And Rei'due south reasoning for her restraint was non, in and of itself, comforting to Yuuki. There was no misunderstanding the implication behind what she didn't say: that it was a applied business rather than whatsoever moral qualm that was staying her hand. The callous indifference to life in the annotate bothered her enough to say something virtually it. "How would yous know it'southward someone bad who ends upwardly drinking that?"
Rei made a skeptical sound and scrunched up her face a scrap. "Ehh, I'd say the chances of anyone living with these monkeys non beingness part of their schemes are pretty sparse to nonexistent. Just you're probably right anyway."
That settled, they moved on, and prepared to find a path by the aggro mobs they could conspicuously notice a few rooms away. Yuuki was well-practiced at estimating mob level based on cursor colour, and she thought Rei probably had the right of information technology when she pegged the undead citizenry somewhere in their 20s. Their cursors were a pale salmon-pinkish in color, and on the one occasion where they had no choice simply to get close enough to aggro and clear a mob, information technology took several solid hits earlier information technology went downwards.
Yuuki and Rei shared a look of understanding at the end of that battle; it had been brief and easy, merely noisy enough to exist worrisome. A brief use of Searching reassured them that all of the histrion cursors they could see were stationary.
"Still asleep, too."
"How practise y'all know?"
Rei smiled. "Take another expect. Run into how they're well-nigh here?" She positioned her palm facing down at around hip level—simply almost where someone's caput might be while lying on a bed. "Zero movement either. People fidget more than than they think they do when they're awake, but the game seems to suppress well-nigh avatar motion during REM slumber. Information technology'southward noticeable when you're watching their cursor."
Yuuki shook her caput. Not because she idea Rei was wrong, but more out of disbelief that anyone could slumber in a wild dungeon—even 1 right under a metropolis. "Who would alive downward here, permit lonely stay the dark? A mob could pop in on you at any moment."
Rei'due south most-transparent shrug was barely visible in the dark dungeon hallway; they'd been deliberately avoiding the orelit pathways that marked the well-traveled areas, just in case there was a sentry concealing their cursor. "Sometimes you'll notice balance areas in the middle of a dungeon—piffling Safe Zone pockets just big enough for a party to spend the night or end for a meal. Mayhap that's where they slumber?"
Yuuki knew the kinds of rest areas Rei was talking near. Information technology made as much sense to her as anything else in this crazy place, merely that notwithstanding didn't seem correct. She could encounter the same four player cursors on their own floor that Rei did, and when she squatted low she saw what Rei meant about their positioning. Gauging their size by long practice, she estimated their distance at somewhere around eighty meters or so. If they're really all packed into the same little residuum area, they should look similar they're bunched upwardly together. But they're far enough apart that they wait like they take their own rooms.
Information technology took the better part of an hour and a half, but with great care Yuuki and Rei were able to scout the outer perimeter of all the rooms in the zone that appeared to be under player command, filling in some of the gaps in the map information that Rei had shared earlier. The two of them crawled into a narrow passage formed by a complanate ceiling, and tucked themselves into a cavity in the previously-unreachable room above to review what they'd learned.
"This is the chief road I scouted yesterday between the prison lift and their living area," Rei said, drawing a jinking path of calorie-free beyond the map with 1 fingertip. "They seem to be using orelight candles as markers for important turns and dangerous spots, which helps us every bit much every bit it helps them." She touched three fingers to the map window and slid them downwards; the voxels in the two-dimensional image churned until she'd finished dragging the view to the next floor beneath them.
"It looks like the road basically does a big horseshoe shape effectually the edge of the map to the stairs down, back forth the same sort of route to the other side of the next floor, and then a wide jiggly circle northward around the 3rd sublevel. Information technology probably goes a lot deeper, only aside from path markers, the inhabited areas seem to be here on SL4 where we are now." She paused, and looked expectantly at Yuuki. "Find annihilation?"
Yuuki did, merely she was having trouble putting information technology into words until Rei panned the map upwards and down through the floors a few more than times for contrast. "There'southward a large gap of fog in the eye of the map, and information technology's in the same place on every floor."
"But nothing exterior of that area actually connects to it on whatsoever of those floors… except for here, and here."
So saying, Rei brought the map view downwardly to their sublevel and drew circles around a few areas that however revealed nothing but the featureless gray of unexplored territory across them. "These rooms are both furnished and have player-crafted doors on them." She tapped a manus-drawn mark for a double door. "From the looks of the map, we might be able to get effectually through this other hallway—but that's right where all the player cursors are, and if it's where they sleep, information technology's probably locked downwardly physically from the within. Not certain I desire to run a risk it." She pointed in the center of the unexplored area, where the directly line of an unbroken hallway reached halfway across the fog before ending at that place. "This hallway looks important, just the door at the end was locked—and with someone in there concluding night, I couldn't chance picking it.
Yuuki had spent many hours poring over maps similar these with Asuna; she knew how to interpret the 2-dimensional slices of the world that she was seeing, and everything that Rei was describing fit with what she'd observed so far. "Tin yous pick it? The lock on the double doors, I mean?"
Rei grinned. "'Can you choice information technology', she says."
Yuuki mimed a pulled punch at her shoulder, and the woman'southward grin widened as her crouching position briefly unbalanced and tipped her dorsum confronting the wall. "I've got good «Lockpicking», a badass toolkit, and a ready of top-tier crafted gloves upgraded with nothing but Burglar imbuements for the really tough locks. Trust me, we're covered."
That remained to exist seen, but Yuuki did at least trust Rei to know her ain abilities. It didn't take them long to brand their way back to the double doors Rei had mentioned; in one case they'd rejoined the better-lit areas, the route was well-marked and sparse on mobs.
After equipping her swap gloves, Rei sank fluidly into a kneel in front of the doors, and undid the snaps on one of her chugalug pouches—which turned out to not be a pocket, merely a flap of black leather over a collection of different metallic and crystal picks slipped into finger-sized sheaths. She seemed to know them by feel and didn't fifty-fifty glance at them, merely paused at Yuuki'due south await of open marvel, then slipped several sets out of the pack and held them out in her palm.
"Carbon steel for everyday work. There's almost no risk of breaking it, but besides no bonuses to my Lockpicking. The enchanted platinum with gold tips are for tougher locks; they give a skill bonus but have low durability, and can break if you're not conscientious. The crystal ones are expensive consumables, huge buffs and an most guaranteed success, just they shatter later on one employ. I'll start with the bones steel picks, see what we're dealing with."
Yuuki had never seen anyone pick locks in the game earlier, and was fascinated. It seemed to exist a two-handed job; Rei leaned in shut to the lock and slipped i of the picks in at an angle, and so carefully began wiggling a second one in the mechanism, occasionally testing the lock'southward willingness to rotate with the very slightest of twists.
"Information technology's a bit of conscientious trial and fault," Rei said, tongue briefly poking slightly out betwixt her lips and brow furrowing with focus. "But you can feel the sweetness spot when you're close; it'south kinda like running your fingertips over braille, if yous've e'er done that. Leveling upwardly Lockpicking makes that easier to find. It's the same bones minigame a hundred other games have washed, just with bodily tools in your hand." She grunted, sitting back with a frown. "I can't even get a nibble hither, though."
Rei slipped the carbon steel picks back into the kit, and plucked the gold-tipped tools in their stead. "Circular two," she said, vox however kept to only in a higher place a whisper. This time her concentration was total; her hands moved in subtle, sometimes well-nigh imperceptible ways, and she didn't speak again until making a breakthrough. "And…. that'due south it that'due south it that's it there we get! Yeesh." Rei gave the pair of platinum picks a look of shut scrutiny, borer them to check their status windows for damage to durability, and then returned them to their home. "Level on that lock must've been at least 600, maybe even 700 or higher. Yous don't usually detect annihilation that tough that isn't a thespian residence."
Yuuki one-half-faced the hallway down which they'd come and held Penitent Wrath at ready, watching their backs with Searching upwards. Rei slowly pressed at one of the doors with her fingertips, which bowed with the light resistance as she carefully worked it open. The several seconds it took to do that felt very long in the anxious tension of her mental state, and once the door had croaky open enough that she could peer within, Rei gave Yuuki a nod and slipped into the next room.
Past the time Yuuki had finished carefully easing the door close again, Rei was already at piece of work unlocking another pair of double doors that faced the entrance across a modest round room. The only light came from more of the same glowing crystalline candles she'd seen elsewhere in the zone, simply Rei voiced no complaints—she seemed to do Lockpicking almost entirely by feel anyway, though she at least had to driblet the Transparency aura to see her ain hands. The woman looked up long enough to give a mean glower at one of the large black banners draping the stone walls around them, each with the scarlet Salamander faction symbol printed on them, and then back to her piece of work.
Glancing in that management, Yuuki had to grimace likewise, if only at the tackiness of the display. You'd retrieve just i of those banners would exist enough. Information technology's like they think they're gonna forget what faction they're a office of every bit soon equally they look away.
The black fabric hung from somewhere high above, and she had to follow them upwards with a tilt of her chin in lodge to detect the posts they were secured to. When she did, she gave a pocket-size gasp. Rei swore as she broke a pick, the sharp metallic ting just before the remnants quietly shattered into polygons. She uttered something even more than pungent when she saw what had drawn Yuuki'south reaction.
The ceiling had to be at least fifteen meters high, and was dark enough at the meridian that she could only faintly encounter the stone and metal supports. Suspended from heavy steel bolts at the ends of thick chains were a handful of the aforementioned iron maidens she'd seen lying in pieces or disorderly piles around the zone, each a vaguely human-shaped oblong casing of wrapped iron bands adorned with spikes. Well-nigh of them hung open, yawning emptily like a wide mouthful of brusque teeth; 1 was in a country of such rusted neglect that its front end lid appeared to be dangling from a unmarried swivel.
"But dungeon scenery," Rei said a minute later, using her wings merely enough to launch her up to one of the support posts, which let her clamber up onto one of the chains. She dropped back to the ground and landed in a lithe hunker. "Seriously," she whispered, withdrawing one of the precious consumable picks and using it to quickly defeat the inner set of doors. "Who the fuck even gets off on living in a place like this. C'mon, we're right in the eye of the unexplored blob on the map." After a quick check with Searching to ensure none of the residents had stirred, they slipped inside.
For Yuuki, two words neatly summed upwards the room immediately beyond the small circular foyer: huge and dark. The faintest, weakest blink of ambient light bled through from the room they'd only been in, which revealed to them the purpose of the banners: from this side, they could see that each of the walls bearing ane of the Salamander-branded tapestries was actually host to a large barred window, similar that of a prison cell, each of which rose from floor level all the fashion to almost a meter above Yuuki'south head. Eight such windows encircled the pocket-sized entryway, which in the absenteeism of the heavy banners would've been exposed on all sides except the two doors and ii solid walls to either side, which Yuuki could at present see served as support pillars. These aren't actually dissimilar rooms at all. They only sectioned off this bit of it.
The space above was cavernous, and only past looking directly up could Yuuki tell that it shared the same high ceiling with the room through which they'd simply entered. From there its total extent was lost to the attenuation of distance and deep darkness, though here and there the faint glow of an orelight marker penetrated the gloom. There might well have been more such markers; as Yuuki moved, she could occasionally see other lights winking in and out of being, similar distant stars briefly occluded by an orbiting torso. But no matter which direction she looked, her ability to come across anything more than a few meters was blocked by the parallax upshot of shadowy intervening objects, each a dim shape that loomed just when she idea she was getting a clear line of sight to 1 of the lights.
"Yuuki." Rei'south voice had simply been barely more a whisper, just it was laden with all the dismay of a ragged shout. She felt Rei's hand grasping in the darkness, seizing on her wrist with well-nigh uncomfortable intensity, as if she hadn't fifty-fifty been completely sure where her companion was.
Yuuki swatted abroad the anti-harassment message with her free hand, feeling a arctic that was unjustified by the ambient temperature of the dungeon. The Escape Crystal that Rei pulled from a belt pouch, though worryingly nonfunctional in this zone, still glowed a bright-enough blue to bandage a cold light on their firsthand surroundings.
Yuuki nearly wished information technology hadn't.
Rei had come shut enough to brush against ane of the obstacles in the room, an obelisk of the zone'southward namesake black iron that was one of dozens ascension out of the gloom—and in some cases, hanging from above. At close range and with the benefit of illumination she could see that the bands of metal forming the cage-like structure were clean and free of rust, and that some of what she'd taken for spikes on the others had really been broken eye bolts or other hardware zipper points. One of those points bore a steel lock with brass bands that shone in the crystal-light.
Rei handed the Escape Crystal to Yuuki, and reached for her picks. Her hands were shaking equally she worked at the padlock on the side of the tapered metallic box; Yuuki couldn't tell whether it was from anger or fright, or some combination. It took only moments for the tumblers to click into identify and the lock to autumn away; Rei caught it in the open palm of i hand before it could clatter to the floor.
Yuuki already had a horrible suspicion what they were going to find, and imagined her companion was probably thinking something similar. Yet, what she hadn't been expecting when Rei swung open the lid of the mute coffin shape was the spectral course of some kind of ghost inside. It resembled in general outlines the torso of a fae from some unidentifiable race, just faded into translucence suffused with a sickly dark-green and so faint that it was simply visible at this shut range. Some parts of the ghost's trunk were missing entirely in a style that was difficult to expect at, and the thing was every bit deathly even so as its forged metallic cage. It amused a sense of vague, uneasy familiarity for her; she wondered if it was a kind of undead she'd seen elsewhere recently.
All the same, not only did the thing not pop a player cursor, it had no cursor or status ribbon at all, not fifty-fifty that of an NPC—it was, and then far equally she could tell, just another of the dungeon's stupidly creepy but inert decorations. She didn't even want to recall about touching information technology. Enough lite was cast from the Escape Crystal in Yuuki's paw for her to clearly see Rei mouth the word mob?, a confused expression on her face while she drew and held her sais at set up. Yuuki shook her head, feeling an irrational surge of annoyance at letting some artist's brushwork freak her out so much.
Raising the glowing crystal high, Yuuki let it form an umbrella of illumination over her, and sent filaments of weak light flickering through the gaps between the blackness iron obelisks as she moved. Each maiden hung at the finish of a long chain that dangled either from a support axle above, or from somewhere further still out of sight; the overall event was that of slabs of beef hanging in a slaughterhouse of imposing metal.
"Let'due south see if they're all like that," Rei whispered, leaning in close to Yuuki. "If these monkeys really are hiding kidnapped players hither, they might have them mixed in with the item objects."
Yuuki gave a quiet un of understanding, and followed forth behind Rei while the other Imp fabricated curt piece of work of each padlock and checked what it was hiding. Nonetheless, to their growing frustration they found nothing but more of the dungeon'south ghastly decor in ane maiden after some other. Occasionally they had to maneuver around free-standing obstacles of some sort, solid rectangular steel panels every bit tall as a Gnome that appeared to be mounted on wheeled platforms; they were merely equally conspicuously player-crafted additions as any of the other well-made, unsullied effects they'd seen.
"I don't go information technology," Rei said later nearly ten minutes of fruitless searching with the aforementioned results, taking a seat on the cold flagstone and looking up at the latest container filled with the spectral remnants. "What'due south the betoken of all this?"
Yuuki nodded, the precipitous edges of anxiety beginning to fade, replaced by something that was more than akin to la-la-land than anything else. "Living in a dungeon, the banners, the moving walls, all the awful decorations—it's similar some dumb jerk'south idea of an evil villain'southward hideout."
Equally she'd been doing after opening each lock, Rei gave the surface area a quick once-over with Searching. The same player cursors must even so have been asleep, for she gave a brusque, plosive sigh. "I don't know," she said, her voice wavering, almost breaking. "Maybe nosotros were wrong. I merely don't become why they'd spend so much coin and resources on all the thespian-crafted shit without some actually good reason. I can't help feeling like maybe nosotros've walked into some asshole'due south larper fantasy." She looked around once again, and so sighed once again, this fourth dimension more softly. "Anyhow, let me get the Transparency aura back up just in case someone wakes."
An inconsistency had been nagging at the dorsum of Yuuki'south heed, and of a sudden it clicked for her in a rush of awful certainty. "Rei…?"
Something in Yuuki's phonation must have signaled her state of listen. Rei was immediately alert as her gaze snapped towards Yuuki. "What?"
"If those ghosts are just office of the decorations, why practice the things they're in look new enough to exist thespian-crafted? And why practise they all have new locks on them?"
It was incommunicable to be sure in the thin, cold light from the Escape Crystal, just Yuuki thought Rei's face might have paled just then. It would accept fit with the horrified look on her face up as they both turned back to the iron maiden they'd merely unlocked. But in that location aren't whatever cursors, she thought. None of them moved a millimeter or fabricated any audio, fifty-fifty when we tried shaking one of the cages.
This one had since they last looked. Its optics were broad open and staring, and its mouth was working soundlessly in a face full of terror.
Yuuki very about screamed. The sound but made it equally far as a squeak, and fifty-fifty that was suppressed by Rei's manus clapping over her oral fissure. The form within this muzzle was the head, torso and legs of a man, with both feet and the right hand missing; now that the lid was open, the person was frantically grasping with their left manus at the bondage keeping them securely bound within the iron maiden, all the while looking as if he was trying to yell something.
There was not the slightest racket.
All at in one case, Yuuki realized why the appearance of the "ghosts" had seemed vaguely familiar to her, and her optics went to the thespian-crafted iron maidens. They appeared purely decorative, and didn't have the horrifying sets of inner spikes that the placed versions had… but they still closed and locked. And she knew from talking to some of the Undine crafters that nearly whatsoever crafted item could be imbued with spell furnishings, given the right skill and mats.
"Rei… I think these cages are enchanted with the same spell effects we were simply using."
With Transparency e'er on, no one would ever run into their cursors even if they walked right up to them, Yuuki thought. With Muffle, no 1 would ever hear them, fifty-fifty if they screamed at the top of their lungs, and they'd be almost deafened within. No one can send them a PM, and from in here they couldn't send a saved typhoon fifty-fifty if their hands or arms hadn't been cutting off. And because they're persistent effects granted past an item rather than a spell, they can't just dismiss them by looking at the icons.
A deep-seated, righteous rage flowed through Yuuki, molten beneath her skin. She couldn't fifty-fifty begin to imagine why someone would practice something like this, what purpose could possibly justify it even to the kind of genuinely sick individual Gitou seemed to have been. While Rei worked to unlock the other thick metal cages one by one every bit quickly every bit possible, Yuuki leaned in shut to the man trapped within the nearest 1. Setting the Escape Crystal on the ground so that it would still shed some light, she held a finger upward to her lips. After a moment, the terrified human being jerkily nodded his understanding.
Yuuki rose to her feet, bootheels tapping softly on the flagstone tiles as she took several steps back and leveled her sword at the man. His eyes widened, and he began shaking his caput quickly, probably misinterpreting her intent. In that location was a very cursory whirring sound equally her weakest, quickest single-strike technique powered upwardly, and in a wink of white low-cal the glowing blade surged forward and shattered one of the key chain-links with just the razor-sharp tip, precisely placed. The remainder of the chains soundlessly dropped into the bottom of the iron maiden, and the man weakly crumpled forward into Yuuki'due south arm'due south.
"What the fuck was that?" Rei dropped down from higher up, where she'd been trying to attain one of the upper cages without the noise of using her wings. Her eyes went dark-green every bit she frantically looked around for cursors. "Are you trying to wake up the whole identify?"
"We have to get them out somehow," Yuuki said, belongings the weeping homo up with no real effort. "They're chained in place."
"Yeah, and those bondage are gonna have locks somewhere in the whole linkage, or some kind of pin holding them in. Let'south practise this smart and quiet."
At that place really wasn't annihilation to argue with; what Rei said was sensible, tedious and frustrating though information technology was. As she continued her piece of work, Yuuki carefully set the homo down into a leaning position against one of the platformed metal barriers. She manifested a healing potion and handed one to him, hoping that would help restore his lost limbs. "Are you okay?"
"Besides long," the man sobbed, gripping the potion and then tightly with his remaining paw she thought he was going to shatter it. "Too long, as well dark, likewise serenity, idea I was dead…"
"Potable this," Yuuki encouraged him. "You're not dead, and nosotros're gonna get you lot outta here…" She anxiously looked up and around, toggling on her own Searching skill and verifying that none of the other cursors had changed.
"Likewise long, too long…" The man, who Yuuki could now tell was a Sylph, looked upwards at her with heartbreakingly naked, pitiful fearfulness. "Don't put me back in, please… you can't imagine what information technology'southward like, being in total darkness and silence. Can't move, tin't practise anything… and the torture..."
Torture. Acrimony flared again in Yuuki. "What do yous hateful?"
"Every day. Can't run across or hear, so there'south no warning. Sometimes it'southward but for a little while, but sometimes information technology goes on for hours." The human's phonation broke in that location. "Sometimes I'll just see spell effects in my HUD, but sometimes it's more than—like touching an electric fence, over and over again."
The description stirred some other familiar retentiveness for Yuuki. It had merely happened a few times, merely she remembered having her techniques stopped in their tracks past «Interrupt» spells from Salamander privateers. For just a moment when the spell consequence hit her, information technology had felt like every muscle in her upper body decided to spasm at once—a bit like an electric shock, just lacking the abrupt teeth or grinding ache of actual hurting. Even though it hadn't really injure, every bit such, it had however been a very unpleasant feel she wouldn't want to repeat, and she couldn't imagine anyone casting a spell or standing a precise motility while getting hit with it.
Over and over once again.
Knowledge came like the dawning light of revelation, so filled with confidence that Yuuki felt like she was receiving the Word of God. She looked dorsum over her shoulder, but there were other cages in between her and the door through which they'd come, and she couldn't even see the wafer-sparse line of dim light nether the banners. They must be using these poor players to level up their skills. Cloth doesn't block spell effects, so those banners wouldn't terminate an AOE from hitting anyone in here even though you can't see through them. The gaps in the iron maidens would let the spell hit anyone inside them. Those metal walls on wheels are probably then they tin can switch who they're using for target practice.
Yuuki'south fist tightened again on the grip of her sword. Target exercise against innocent people who've been trapped inside their bodies. Trapped in sightless, soundless oblivion for who knows how long.
The rage struck Yuuki once again, and this fourth dimension information technology came to stay, turning to the steady, implacable heat of pahoehoe lava. Nosotros can't leave anyone like this. Nosotros take to get them out—all of them.
- #2,191
...and the worst part is that I'1000 betting the people backside it accept absolutely no inkling how horrible it actually is.
- #2,192
...and the worst office is that I'm betting the people behind it accept absolutely no clue how horrible it actually is.
Sadists rarely stop to think about how they would feel if their own methods were used upon them.
- #2,193
It's not even that.Well, now we know how the Sandmen's quick skill-boost method works. Absolutely horrifying. Time to take these bozos down.Sadists rarely stop to remember about how they would experience if their own methods were used upon them.
While I'yard certain some of them are sadists this is existence played more similar people who "like to play the villain" and theorycrafting min-maxers coming upward with a way to ability grind that takes nothing into business relationship other than risk 5. reward.
- #ii,194
Is that the lockpick mini-game from Skyrim?
The Sandmen are running this operation and synthetic each of the items necessary to pull it off. I'thousand pretty sure they can imagine how horrible information technology is. The fact that they're and so resistant to their operation becoming public or scaling it up tells us they know exactly how it will be received if the details came out.
- #ii,195
The Sandmen are, fundamentally--like everyone else--limited by what the game volition allow them to craft. If you run into a "detail" particular or ornament in the game, there's a potent adventure that a recipe exists to arts and crafts information technology--or, if there isn't, and a player happens to mention the lack, it is not out of the question that Heimdall would parse that and assess that a generating simple new quest is in lodge. Players take a certain amount of freedom to become creative, peculiarly if they can find an NPC crafter with the appropriate knowledge, and tin manage to describe to the NPC what they desire in a manner that Heimdall can parse into a desired finish result. But as a general rule this does not extent to inventing or building items from raw mats in a real-world way. This is not, after all, Log Horizon.Huh. I had envisioned the prisoners existence between partially and more often than not dismembered down to the smallest possible size and in a form-fitting container, with the container blocking the dismembered parts of the avatar from respawning even if heals are practical due to hitbox conflict, in gild to maximize the number of targets that could be packed into a given area.
In this case, what became available to them while their group was still nascent was a "decorative" item recipe from the zone they'd claimed. They already had the bones idea from Gitou, who'd discovered long ago that crafted handcuffs/manacles actually work--if you can get them on someone without tripping the AHC--and that if enchanted, they passed on those effects to the "wearer".
The "targets" are in concentric circles surrounding the grooming room, the first just on the other side of the banners. The base radius of the M1 spell they are using to start with is ii meters; from where the trainee stands off to one side of the room, they are hitting merely the targets in the get-go "ranks" just outside that one-half of the room, which is where the maidens are most densely packed. At M2 it goes upward to five meters, then eight, and so 12, and 16 at M5--by which indicate the supply of targets thins out. Subsequently M2 the area covered past the AOE'due south radius is merely roughly doubling with each magnitude, and past the time a player hits mid-range skill the increase in potential targets stops keeping up with the diminishing returns in skill gain.How large is the AoE radius of a minimum rank spell?
Skyrim, Fallout, and variations elsewhere, more or less. It'southward certainly not the only way to prepare a tumblers-and-picks minigame, just it has the benefit of beingness easy to empathise while requiring a subtle bear on to primary, and mechanically speaking information technology lends itself well to being gamified in a tactile way for a VR interface. I've referenced Lockpicking before, but oasis't really had much of an opportunity to show how it actually works.Is that the lockpick mini-game from Skyrim?
I borrow a bit at points from TES in general and Skyrim in particular at points, but that'south because information technology has some very strong parallels to ALO in terms of theme and mechanics, especially where it concerns the passing moving ridge at in the direction of things Nordic, and---most importantly--getting better at things by doing them.
- #two,196
- #2,197
- #2,198
Should exist italicized?they were relatively brusk like bo staves,
Stairs? We oasis't seen any. If Rei'south pointing to something on the map, maybe say "these stairs"?"It looks like the route basically does a big horseshoe shape effectually the edge of the map to the stairs down, back along the same sort of route to the other side of the next flooring, so a broad jiggly circumvolve north effectually the third sublevel. It probably goes a lot deeper, but aside from path markers, the inhabited areas seem to exist here on SL4 where we are now." She paused, and looked expectantly at Yuuki. "Notice anything?"
SL4 is counting down from the elevator room? Then the hoist room is on SL5?
They're now ane level up from the ane with the sleeping players.And so saying, Rei brought the map view down to their sublevel ... "From the looks of the map, we might be able to get around through this other hallway—just that's correct where all the player cursors are, and if it's where they sleep,
"handed information technology to him"?She manifested a healing potion and handed one to him,
Should be italicized.Yuuki gave a quiet un of agreement, and followed
From the clarification of their move, it's non cages blocking her line of sight but that they're at present around the bend of the inner wall. Unless they've worked their mode dorsum effectually in the dorsum rows?She looked back over her shoulder, but there were other cages in between her and the door through which they'd come,
In the clarification of Mort'due south training session, he was standing v meters from Trigger, so a scrap further than that from the wall. And shooting straight downwards, which is why we figured the prisoners were bunched together merely beneath the flooring.The "targets" are in concentric circles surrounding the training room, the first just on the other side of the banners. The base radius of the M1 spell they are using to start with is two meters; from where the trainee stands off to one side of the room, they are hitting only the targets in the first "ranks" simply outside that one-half of the room, which is where the maidens are most densely packed. At M2 it goes up to 5 meters, and so 8, then 12, and 16 at M5--past which point the supply of targets thins out.
That training method is *nasty*, though. My guess is that the kidnapped people are beneath the floor and getting healed every bit the damage is washed, which...
The point of the shield walls is to allow Sandmen stay in the target room while training is going on?
Boy, this is going to blow up Salamander politics (assuming they pull off the rescue). The old faction leader is somehow associated with these monsters so there'll be suspicion that he was in on it, while it'south coming to light early on in the term of the new one so he'southward probably not tainted. Corvatz could wind up looking like a hero instead of a warmonger.
- #2,199
I hateful, we all knew what was coming but I was all the same imagining the prisoners being locked in some closed off dungeon room, at least being able to walk around and talk to each other, not this!
I'm honestly surprised that man is as coherent as he is later spending fucking months in sensory deprivation torture with no exterior contact any.
Any is going to happen to the people behind this scheme once this blows upward, it won't be enough.
- #2,200
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