The Trade Center. Aran said they won’t let anybody near it. But I need to try it. Find out about better gear. Maybe communications of some kind. Information. Something.
You don’t study hypnotism for years and years and not get pretty good at convincing, but I didn’t have time to screw around with this. I needed them to listen to me and I needed them to listen hard. Plus whatever else we’d have to convince everybody was the right thing to do.
Select Class Skill ‘Indirect Suggestion.’
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Class Skill ‘Indirect Suggestion’ selected.
I felt a little relief about having my Skill slots full, even if I couldn’t help second-guessing myself. I might be sorry about not having that force field, I thought.
Then I got another surprise.
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Congratulations, you have been awarded the title ‘Child of Aglaope.’ As the first being to have both the Class Skill ‘Suggestion’ and the Class Skill ‘Indirect Suggestion,’ you have persuasive abilities which could be effective against nearly every being in the System. (This is why we were horrified.) This title grants a 50% decrease in Mana costs to use Suggestion, Indirect Suggestion, and other related Class Skills, along with a one-time five-point bonus to Charisma. This Title will not be visible to other beings less than fifty levels higher than you unless you choose to display it.
“Holy SHIT,” I said out loud. Again. The Mana costs for those Skills were pretty high. I didn’t envy any other Mesmerists who learned them without the benefits of Mesmer’s Heir. But now they were not only reasonable, but fairly cheap. I could keep Indirect Suggestion up for four minutes, and have enough Mana left from regeneration to keep me from going into shock. Without my Titles, I wouldn’t even have been able to cast it.
Once I started muttering, I tended to keep doing it. Bad habit, but what can you do?
“Okay, you’d have to have, what, a forty Intelligence to cast Indirect Suggestion? For one minute? That’s crazy. There must be ways to increase your Mana or decrease Class Skill costs. Other than being the first lucky bastard to try things in a Class the System has just created. Maybe they’ll balance it. Shit, I might get nerfed.”
Thinking about what the mysterious ‘we’ who ran the System might do was pointless, so I stopped thinking about it and went to organize our gear. Then I got a sleeping bag, laid on top of it, and, feeling actually safe for the first time since yesterday morning, promptly fell asleep.
Chapter 21
And Now, The Noobs
“James?” A soft voice and a gentle hand on my shoulder brought me back to the waking world. It was quite dark in the tent: the sun had set and almost no light was coming in through the clear vinyl ‘windows’ in the roof and sides.
“I’m awake,” I mumbled. “Some mage, don’t even have a light spell.”
“I brought you some food,” said Danielle, now that she was done shaking me. “Dinner was over but there was a little left and some people were hanging around. We started talking to them and it almost caused a riot.”
I sat up. “What?”
“Hang on,” she said. I heard her set something down by my sleeping bag. She was a vague form in the gloom. “Change me back so I can find the candle and matches I had in my bag, please.”
PRIVATE MESSAGE / TO DANIELLE BRAID: Here, kitty kitty. Let’s see if all cats look alike in the dark.
I felt, more than saw or heard, the change. Somehow her presence was different. Quieter, more precise. In the dark, I could feel her deadly grace. It was a little unnerving. And a lot sexy, but that could just have been me.
“Thank you, nya,” she said. I let myself smile since I knew she was looking in her bag. “This… this is weird.”
“How so?” I asked.
“It’s like looking through those night vision goggles that are all shades of green, except everything’s gray, nya. But I can still see forms and edges and things, nya, even though it’s all gray.”
“That does sound weird,” I agreed. “Do you think you could read in this light?”
“Maybe?” she answered. “If the paper was white and the print was black and not too small, nya.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s way better than night-vision goggles can do. You’re amazing.”
“I… well… thank you, nya” she said. I could hear the blush in her voice. It was adorable.
Just as she struck a match, something occurred to me.
“Danielle don’t l…” I was cut off by a yowl of pain. “… don’t look at the light.”
“Ow!” she said. “That hurt. I can’t see!”
“It’ll pass,” I said. “It’s no different from going from a dark room into the sunlight, except your eyes are a zillion times more sensitive. Close them. I’ll light the candle.”
I retrieved the matches and the candle from her, narrowly avoiding putting my knee in my dinner. Once I had it lit and put it somewhere safe, she opened her eyes slowly.
“That’s better,” she said. “It was the flare of the match. It was like looking into the sun.”
“Well, you’ve learned a valuable lesson,” I said teasingly.
I retrieved the plate of food and a plastic cup of water she’d brought me. It was a sandwich with some kind of meat, some chips, and some carrot sticks.
“Thank you for the food,” I said, digging in. The sandwich was barbequed pork, still warm. It was glorious.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “I made them heat it up for you. Ours went cold, so many people wanted to talk to us. Eventually Mandy yelled at everybody to be quiet and let us eat for a minute. She’s scary.”
“Was that what started the riot?” I was suddenly starving, so it came out a little undignified.
“No,” she said, giggling at my mouth-full speech. “And it wasn’t really a riot, more of a surge of people once we started demonstrating the Inventory and talking about how to pick Class Skills, nya. A few people had heard about some of the System stuff, but there really aren’t that many gamers as into it as you and Joe and Sam. Nobody was putting the pieces together.”
She let out a sigh. Even her exasperation was cute.
“One lady said it was Satanic and started yelling, nya. A few people seemed to agree with her, but there was a deputy in the crowd and he told them if they didn’t like it, they could leave, nya. The lady ran off and so did some of the people who agreed, but others stayed.” She sounded irritated. “Why does everything you don’t understand come from the Devil to these people, nya?”
“Because in their worldview it’s literally true,” I answered. “I don’t think the Devil made the System. It could be much worse. And more seductive at the same time.” I tried to think of things I needed to know about our first interaction with larger groups.
Oh, right. That was important.
“Were you able to find out if people in the Zone got the ‘Survivor’ quest credit?” That was a big deal. If so, the world would have a lot of people who were Level 5, or higher, immediately after System Start.