Town Builder - 72 - All the Skills

Chapter 72: All the Skills

Skill books came in three grades: novice, expert, and master. Novice skill books could raise a skill up to level seven, master books could raise a skill up to 23, and expert up to level 43. However, I had only seen one master-level skill book in the player auction house so far during my time in the game, and it was for the dancing skill. The early start players were not stupid and had gutted the player auction houses of useful skill books. I was fortunate that I had Grinder stock up Malcum. It was hard to determine what the game economy was going to settle the prices at. Demand was going to outstrip supply far. However, novice skill books were not too difficult to find in NPC shops, which is where we were going.

Yorick, my bodyguard, came riding up on his mount. After a short discussion it was decided he would remain behind to guard Jaesmin and Joy.

“Are we bringing our companions?” Danny asked, eager to be on our way.

I used my interface as I checked on Simba, and the lazy catman was averaging one tier-one quest a day. “Yeah, mine is not doing much with the quests. But perhaps you should leave yours in Goatyah to help defend it.”

“Probably not a bad idea. The safe zone around my town is only a hundred yards from the archer towers. I need more buildings and a larger population to expand the zone. Still, it is much better than before when I was trying to support a town on the border of the Desolation Lands. There was a daily corrupt monster rush.” Danny saddled her horse while I summoned Simba using my interface.

It wasn’t long before the tiger catkin came trotting up. “Tallis, I was in the middle of a quest to find five hundred river stones for decorating a walkway.” I raised my eyebrow in disbelief as I checked the quest he was working on. He wasn’t lying, but the stones required were not large, fist-sized, and roughly flat, but he had been on the quest for half a day already—something I could have completed in less than two hours.

“How far did you get?” I asked my AI companion. I couldn’t see progress in the interface but could ask the owner of the home or Neral if I really cared.

“About a hundred so far,” Simba noted with a feral grin of self-satisfaction.

“Well, you are coming with us to visit some NPC cities to purchase skill books,” I told the AI. I don’t know why I thought Simba would be more useful than he was when I committed the gold to bring him back. He shrugged, and we went to the shop to get him outfitted with armor and a few enchanted weapons.

The quality of the equipment Malcum offered had quickly increased with the skill of crafters, and finding gear at the appropriate level was not difficult. My master leather worker, Curraen, was producing suits for as high as level 100 players and NPCs.

Manarag, the metalsmith, was a bit behind. The best weapons he produced gave a combined 60 points in bonus stats. Generally, that was how the game determined the minimum level to wield or wear something. But the higher the quality of the equipment, there could be additional bonuses that didn’t increase the level equip requirement. My own saddle was such.

My own equipment was all level forty gear with minor buffs for improved casting. Beyond my crafter of building plans, I was leaning more toward a spell combat specialization rather than a melee weapon specialization. I still had my axe skills, but once I was able to level my skills again, I wanted to focus on skills that could help with construction. That meant earth, stone, and metal magic. I hadn’t learned metal magic yet, but I think when I specialized with my class at level 100, I was going to select a tailored class that included it as one of my bonus skills. There had to be powerful offensive metal spells to increase my combat ability and I had ideas on how to include metal in future building plans.

Simba didn’t know how to ride so he ignored the horse we had prepared for him, but he could run on all fours at a decent pace. We took off for Stillwater to the south. Danny hadn’t added the portal stone to her network. After taking all the skill books in the city we would ride for Crystalhelm, the capital city of the human kingdom. From there we would take a skyship to another larger city. Which city was yet to be determined. Unfortunately it would take too much time to reach Dragon Tooth City, a world capital city. We only planned to be gone for three game days.

Even though we were riding at a full gallop, it was easy to talk as moved down the road. “We probably should have take a quest involving Stillwater or Crystalhelm.” Danny said reflecting.

“I would have had to fail Simba’s current quest in order to take a new one. How many tier-one quests does your companion finish in a day Danny.” I asked, with the intention of Simba hearing. He was running between our two months.

“Two or three a day,” Danny said loudly with a wink at me. Unfortunately it didn’t faze Simba who seemed to be tuning out the conversation intentionally.

We rode in silence before I thought of a question. “I wonder if players can create skill books.”

Simba, finally showed some usefulness, “It is in the player forums and part of an old update. It requires the scribe skill at expert rank to create novice skill books. But you also need to have the skill at least at novice rank.”

I brought up my screens as I rode to find the entries in the wiki forums and the game updates. It didn’t take long to pull the related information. A novice skill book took one hour to create, required tier one runic paper, and cost ten thousand experience from the player. Expert skill books took ten hours to write, took tier two runic paper, and required one hundred thousand experience from the player.

“Simba, can NPCs make skill books too?” I asked after reviewing the information.

“Of course.  NPCs don’t lose experience in creating skill books but take ten times as long to create a skill book. Many large cities have master NPC scribes where you can commission a certain skill book outside their knowledge.” He said as he ran between us. “But that usually is tied to a quest. There is no skill you cannot learn in the world.”

“Can you lose levels?” Danny asked as she was reviewing the same information I was.

“Yes, that is possible,” Simba said with a feline chuckle. “You won’t lose the benefit you gained at the higher level, but you can’t get them again when you regain the level. So don’t think it is a way to farm skill and stat points.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t thinking that.” I retorted, but that was exactly what I had been thinking as soon as Danny voiced her question.

Simba was a fountain of information, but you needed to ask the right questions. I was considering how to recruit an NPC scribe outside the auction. My town had two paper mills and two master papermakers. I had planned to use the runic paper as a commodity and for books when the library was built—if it ever got built. I half-listened to Danny grill Simba for information on town management.

We reached Stillwater, and I was slightly surprised that Simba had no trouble entering the gates. Simba answered my unasked question, “Danny is the leader of our group, and the guards react to the group as a whole. If she dropped me from the party interface, I might come under more scrutiny.” I nodded as I knew the human kingdom, known as the Veeral Dynasty, was unwelcoming of non-humans. I had recruited a lot of NPCs from their ghetto in Crystalhelm.

I don’t know how players would deal with racist kingdoms in the game. I could see players getting upset at the slightest provocation. I had individual relationship meters with all kingdoms and cities as a player and again as the leader of a town. Generally, they all started as neutral and went up or down based on my actions. Completing beneficial quests in a city or town would improve the reputation. The only perceived benefit beyond that was unlocking more difficult quests.

We stabled the horses and walked on foot through Stillwater. The first bookstore we entered had a few thousand books but only about a dozen novice skill books. A player had already taken all the useful books. “How often do you get new stock?” Danny asked the old man who ran the store.

“Twice a month, a new shipment arrives.” He said in a friendly tone.

Simba was looking at other books in a section labeled Stalking your Prey and added his knowledge, “They will arrive at a random day and time, so you can’t plan to be here when they arrive.”

Danny had her own opinion, “You know the novice skill books are not that valuable. Maybe for just learning the skill, but as long as you use the skill regularly for two weeks or so, you can get it to level seven.”

Was Danny that naïve? “Danny, it is about time spent. Plus, skill books don’t count against your learning speed. I could use seven novice skill books to get a skill to level seven, and it would only take me as much effort as getting a skill from 1 to 2 after that. Also, all the rich players and professional guilds don’t want to waste their time grinding a skill if they can pay to have it start at level seven.”

Danny looked at me and then shrugged, not caring. She had one magic skill she wanted to raise for her desired class, but I assumed that since she was trapped in the game, time was not a problem for her. Most of her skills had probably already passed level seven anyway, meaning the novice skill books were useless to her.

“If you looked at from a pragmatic position, it is like getting plus seven to a skill,” I said trying to convince Danny.

Simba disagreed, shaking his head, “That is not quite true. When a skill reaches twenty-three, the learning bonuses from novice skill books no longer apply. You should read the skill advancement skill again. The same thing applies to expert skill books; the bonuses no longer apply when the skill reaches level 43. However, skill points you use from level advancement never fade.”

Danny scoffed, “Too much math kitty.” Simba hissed, annoyed.

All the novice skill books were fairly cheap, none costing more than five gold. We hit two more bookstores and even found an expert skill book for barbers. That expert book was fifty gold. If that was the average price of an expert skill book, then it would only cost eight hundred gold to raise a skill from level 7 to 23… and each player could have up to twenty-three skills. It was not something the average player could easily afford, but a way to raise difficult skills you didn’t want to waste the bonus skill points you obtained from leveling.

We searched some general stores in the city as well, passing a handful of other players rushing around on quests in our search. The general stores only had one or two novice skill books, and we decided, with our limited time, that we would only search bookstores in the other cities.

I decided to use the portal to get to Crystalhelm with Simba and my mount. I would search the bookstores there while Danny raced alone down the road to Crystalhelm. When she arrived, we would decide which skyship to take to continue our search. So far, neither of the skill books we found and purchased was useful to either of us.

When I arrived in Crystalhelm, my interface noted our party had been temporarily disbanded due to distance apart. Danny was grayed out in the interface, and this was good to know now. I took Simba to the ghetto to see if there were any more non-human NPCs to recruit. It hadn’t changed much since the last time I had been here, and according to Simba, there needed to be a regional cataclysmic event before the large city ghettos would fill with refugees.

The upscale bookstores in the capital had a lot more skill books—they were also twice as expensive, averaging ten gold each. I seemed to have gotten lucky as a shipment recently came in and hadn’t been picked over. Once millions of players joined the game, such luck would be non-existent.

I started greedily stacking the skill books on the counter in the first store and messaged Danny about my success. I ended up with seventy-six novice skill books and three expert skill books, all of which were very useful. They were a set for chaos magic and just seventy gold each. Although I didn’t plan to learn chaos magic myself, the Silver Linings Playbook Guild would be entering the game in eight days. I was certain someone in their number would be interested.

The other bookstores and magic shops were just as well stocked, and I could see why women were exhausted from a long day of shopping. Danny was still half a day away, so Simba and I settled into a tavern to wait for her.

“So, Simba. How do I find a scribe in the city to recruit to Malcum?” I sipped my sweet ale.

The feline face grinned, “I would just wait until the NPC auction concludes.”

It took me a moment to process what he said, “Does that mean the NPC archeologist has the scribe skill?”

Simba’s grin remained as he shrugged. Well, at least the cat was finally useful, saving me time from hunting down and recruiting a scribe. “So how does an NPC scribe create skill books for skills they don’t have?” I asked for idle conversation.

“They need to consult with a master of that skill while they write the book. It then becomes similar to your building plan recipes, and they can reproduce that skill book with the runic paper and enchanted ink. The same goes for players with the scribe skill.” Simba said as he ate his second bloody steak.

Danny arrived late that night and linked the lower city portal stone to her network. We sat together with the skyship schedules to figure out where we wanted to go next. “Maybe there are more interesting skill books in elf lands,” Danny offered. Simba hissed a laugh.

“Do you have something to add?” I asked the tigerkin.

“No. Nothing helpful unless you want to journey in the Endless Dark.” Simba said haughtily.

Danny jumped on the bait, “What’s in the Endless Dark?”

“Interesting skills like you asked for.” Simba grinned with his teeth showing.

“Don’t get him going, Danny. We have enough to worry about on the surface. Looking at the skyship schedule, I say we should either go to the Dwarven City of Khelrahm or the Elven City of Ishelean.” I watched Simba to see how he reacted to the two cities but he didn’t make any indication over the over.

Danny seemed to consider for a while, “I think Khelrahm. I have to deal with the dwarves north of Goatyah eventually, so getting a head start on dealing with them would be good.”

I brought up the player Wiki entry for Khelrahm and read it. “Khelrahm is a mid-tier city on the Vanquished Plains. Most of the quests focus on the nearby dungeon, Glowing Greed. The dungeon is best delved with parties of six, level 50+.”

“So, it is a high-level region. Maybe there will be more expert skill books.” Danny said, and Simba gave a slight nod, affirming her guess. “Since we both have the levels, maybe a dungeon romp?” I could tell Danny was getting a bit bored and needed some excitement. Watching players do guild quests and managing a town was not her cup of tea.

“Let's get a room and leave in the morning with the skyship, then?”

“Just one room?” Danny wiggled her eyebrows at me. It slowed my response before she laughed, “Two rooms it is.”

“Make it three rooms,” Simba added as Danny went to the barkeep to get the rooms.

We all separated, and I headed up to my room and entered. When I opened the door, seeing the bedroom in my lord’s manor and Jaesmin and Joy on the bed was a little disconcerting. “How the…?” I was stumped. Did Simba know this was going to happen?

Jaesmin looked up, smiling, and Joy ran to me, and I scooped her up and spun her in the air. “This is your room, but we share it. When we exit, it will be where we entered it.” Jaesmin answered.

As I played with Joy, Jaesmin informed me, “We finished the Rogues Gallery under the manor today.”

“Half a day early! That is fantastic!” I sat down with Joy to access my interface. The underground structure was complete and flashing.

Very Rare Secret Subterranean Rogues Gallery (Generates one level 27 NPC spy every seven game days) (Bonus: NPC espionage assets can gain 7% level advancement per day training here) Max Capacity: 20 NPCs Profession Effect: Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects) If the enemy discovers this structure, all effects are halved.

I confirmed my one spy in town, the dwarf barber Zion, was attached to the building so he could benefit from the level advantage. Thankfully, the building didn’t require an NPC to operate, but I could assign an administrator if I wanted. The build bonus was about 35% as the NPC level increased from 20 to 27. The timer for my first level 27 spy started at seven days, so I would have one asset before the mass of players arrived.

The only negative was that while Zion was training, he couldn’t work as a counter-espionage agent. But the improvement from 5% to 7% was huge, as it meant my spies gained one level every two weeks. I would leave Zion training the structure until the players arrived. I tried to move Zion to the administrator role just out of curiosity and grinned. I thought I might get some bonuses, like when Neral took over the Adventurer’s Hall.

Very Rare Secret Subterranean Rogues Gallery, Director: Zion Bristlehorn-127  (Generates one level 42 NPC spy every five game days) (Bonus: NPC espionage assets can gain 11% level advancement per day training here) Max Capacity: 20 NPCs Profession Effect: Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects) If the enemy discovers this structure, all effects are halved.

The effectiveness of the structure increased, and the training time for NPC spies decreased. Now, what could I do with a level 42 NPC spy?

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