Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

That wasn’t the story here, it wasn’t about how poor Ryan was despite being an adventurer. It wasn’t even about the fact that Barry lived like a decrepit monk while holding a credit card with virtually unlimited funds.

It was about the fact that Ryan was the second poorest person in the group.

He had thought that he had overcome the path of avarice. Achieved a state of zen impossible to imagine for the pre-adventurer Ryan. He had even left behind a treasure vault for goodness sake! Then he’d left behind an ancient mana cannon in the Trials!

Where did I go wrong?

“Earth to Ryan.”

He had been following the wrong path. When Shara uncovered Rax’s treasure vault, he would demand a fair share. Maybe not fifty percent, perhaps twenty five percent.

At least enough so that Milo wouldn’t have more money on a single finger than his entire net worth.

“EARTH TO RYAN!”

“Huh. Sorry, what was that?”

“Barry’s back. We’re all waiting for you for the after-action report.”

“Sure.”

Barry had taken the silence box himself and told them to return to the hotel. Ryan’s original plan had been to take it to three different [Mages] and have each one verify that there wasn’t some sort of vulnerability in its runes. It wasn’t an uncommon service and you just told all three of them that they wouldn’t be the last [Mages] to see the box.

Barry had instead taken his credit card and went straight for [Witch] Grettfield. A service that Ryan would definitely not be able to pay for.

“Are you sure we can trust her?”

It wasn’t that Ryan didn’t trust the orc’s judgment. He just had a feeling that Barry was just a little too impatient to wait for a round of [Mages].

The orc shrugged noncommittally.

“That’s brilliant, Barry, thanks. Now we might just have another bugged silence artifact.”

Barry huffed. “I’m not an idiot. I didn’t let her touch the silence box. She also swore on her class as a [Witch] to work fairly with us.”

Ryan stared at the orc for a few seconds.

He decided to ask Clara for her thoughts instead. “What do you think?”

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know!”

“I’m being serious Clara, this is too important for me to decide on my own.”

“Then why are you asking me?”

Ryan crossed his arms, staring at the girl who was a better judge of character than he was.

Clara threw her hands up. “Fine! I said it already, she’s like a cool grandma. I can see her being mean and tricky but… I don’t know!”

In fairness, it was probably asking too much to make an important assessment about a powerful [Witch] after only having met her for a few minutes.

“Milo, what do you think?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Yeah, you’re part of the team. This is too important for me to decide by myself.”

Both Clara and Milo stared at him like he’d grown another head.

“You never ask me for advice on things like this.”

“Well if you’re part of the team, then I should treat you all like teammates. No more holding back and keeping secrets. I do my best to keep you guys up to date with what I can and ask for your opinions.”

“Well then, I still think we should continue to use my ring. The Secretary is about making allies for the long run, she wouldn’t risk that with a bugged artifact.”

“...I respect your opinion.”

“No you don’t.”

"Not when you come up with such stupid takes.”

“Well then why ask me!”

“Focus.” Barry said impatiently. “So have you come up with a decision yet?”

“Yeah. Fine, we use the box. Milo, put your stupid bugged ring in the other hotel room.”

–

And so the after-action report began. Catching them up to speed about what happened after he got their advice on how to deal with One-Eyed Rick. He told them what happened and his own concerns.

Milo raised an eyebrow. “You think Rick’s free in The Realm?”

“Probably. If I was the Witch Tyrant, I’d accept the excuse and make him help with whatever plans she has going on.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“No, but Gamielle said that as long as he’s a Fallen, she can deal with him if he shows up publicly.”

They continued with the conversation, talking about his fifth trial and the events that happened there.

Milo, the one person who knew all about adventurer stuff was shocked.

“I can’t believe King Theskar had such a huge secret and nobody else has found out yet. Real hidden dialogue.”

Ryan was a little uncomfortable with talking about hidden dialogue like Trial people were just NPCs with set routes.

“He keeps his cards close to his chest to maximize Trials for adventurers. I respect him.”

Clara was more curious about something else. “Did he really try to implant his aura into you? Wait, is that something you can do?”

“Good question. I have no idea.”

“And you’re never going to if you keep rushing forward with new skills.”

“Thanks Barry.”

After another thirty minutes of discussion, they had to disable the box and have a recess. Clara opened the window, letting some fresh air in. The bubble had started to get stuffy and she needed a breather.

“This new box sucks! I vote to go back to using Milo’s ring.” Clara complained.

The new silence box didn’t have enough airflow passing to match four people breathing and filling the space with carbon dioxide. They took a five minute break and started again.

The story continued with the Manager. Ryan outlined the encounter and what the Manager had wanted from him originally. The idea of him becoming some sort of unrelenting monster seemed to disturb both of his friends.

Clara was in denial. “There’s no way. Like even if we weren’t here you wouldn’t go that far…”

Even Milo didn’t seem to believe such an alternate reality was possible. “I don’t think I’ve done anything helpful at all. The Manager was definitely just messing with you.”

They couldn’t see it at all. It wasn’t like he could show them what he’d seen either. Nor did they know about the thoughts that used to go through his mind.

“Well, just know that you guys made all the difference. Not me.”

He tried to look as genuine as he felt when he looked at his friends. It was perhaps a little too much for them as they both looked a little shy. He turned to the orc who was still impassive. Having his thoughts clouded by heavier things.The orc really needed cheering up and deserved so much better from the world.

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“Especially you Barry, thank you for everything.”

For a moment, it looked as if the orc finally had another motion other than anger and frustration on his face. Though it was quickly masked back up.

Ryan just chuckled. “Yeah, trusting you Barry was the smartest decision I made.”

“Hmph.”

Clara stared intensely at Barry, going closer to his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Barry so smug before.”

“I can’t tell, he looks the same as always.”

“Yup, you can tell with how his lower lip curls slightly above his right tusk—oh it’s gone.”

After that, the conversation took a different turn. When he explained what he’d done along with his question about the Manager being responsible for Gamielle’s death…

Barry was less smug about it all, he was back to full scowl. “Damn. I should’ve thought of it. You should have also told us about this beforehand.”

“I didn’t know what I’d do. I kept it close to my chest because I didn’t know how the Manager’s predictive capabilities worked. All I knew for certain at the time was that it couldn’t read minds.”

That was the conclusion he had come up with when he had completed the First Trial and met with the Manager for the second time.

Clara was confused. “I still don’t see how flipping coins and making decisions based on them will stop the Manager from predicting things.”

Ryan grinned at the room, he’d been working on the plan for a while now. “That’s because it’s only the start.”

“Out with it.” Barry grunted.

“Well the Manager can’t read minds. I’m a hundred percent sure about that one. What you do with the coin is to make up a new condition every day. Heads one day might mean you stay in bed, heads another day might mean you order a different cup of coffee. But you wait till the last minute to make that choice. Do you get it?”

Clara was still dubious, defeating something like the Manager with such a mundane methods seemed like a joke. “Will that really work?”

“I’m not the only one going to do it. Gamielle’s spreading the idea amongst the Fallen. Even if it can predict our thoughts to a certain extent, we know it's not infallible. If we just muddy the field by overthinking every variable and make its job a hundred or a thousand times more difficult…”

Ryan trailed off then looked around at the room. He waved a fist, imagining the Manager watching from the center of the room. Which it undoubtedly was doing.

“Just give up! Life’s not meant to be lived by trying to predict every single outcome. Why don’t you just let things go their natural course. Who knows, maybe without you trying to make things go down a certain path our achievements will be better. Maybe that’s why you’ve been failing this entire time.”

Barry and Clara both widened their eyes.

Milock broke out in a cold sweat. “Dude. Can you not taunt the Manager? It’s still more than capable of doing a lot of shit.”

“Don’t worry, if it’s half as smart as it thinks it is, then it knows it can’t touch you guys without me ruining everything. Besides, the Manager doesn’t know if I might be right. That’s right! I’ve got proof in my Legendary feats that you have no idea what you’re doing!”

Clara was much better than Milo at steering the conversation away from Ryan’s continued sacrilege. “I still can’t believe all of this is caused by the Manager. Does the Witch Tyrant know what he did?”

Ryan scoffed. “Definitely. But that’s the thing, the Manager made sure both of their goals are aligned. She wants to complete the Trial System for her daughter. The Manager wants the Trial System completed. As long as that’s the case, she doesn’t care that she’s siding with the devil who killed her daughter.”

The after-action report continued. Once he got them up to date with the rest of his encounter, the discussion over his classes dominated the conversation.

Milock seemed the most confused with this. “So what. You took a class you knew nothing about? And now it doesn’t seem to do anything?”

“There were only two options left. [Conceptual Reaver] and [Conceptual Metamorph]. I bet anything that if I left the Manager’s abode it would have sped up time until the [Reaver] ate the [Metamorph] and I had no more choices left.”

Milo was still a little apprehensive. “I guess it’s still a Quasi Legendary class. Wait, what am I saying? It’s the same rarity as some of the Tyrants, that’s crazy if you think about it.”

Both the Dwarven Tyrant and the Skillful Tyrant had ‘admitted’ to only having Quasi-legendary classes. While it was still up in the air whether that was still the case it still put Ryan’s class rarity at the bottom rung of the Tyrants.

Clara frowned. “Sorry, it’s probably a stupid question but why is it called a Quasi-Legendary and not like, you know, a different name?”

Both Milo and Ryan looked at her like she was an idiot. Then Ryan turned to Milo.

“Do they really not teach this in class?”

“No!” Clara protested. “They don’t! You guys are just weird, okay?”

He scratched his head. “Well, the leading theory is that the gap between an Epic and a Legendary is just too much.”

“Yeah, but why not classify it with another rarity. You know, like heroic?”

Ryan didn’t like the idea that a heroic rarity would be rarer than an Epic but he chose to ignore her bad taste. “Because fundamentally, an Epic and a Quasi-Legendary aren’t different.”

Clara still didn’t get it. In fairness the realmnet wasn’t united on the reasoning for this. The consensus though was logical.

“Every single jump in rarity is a magnitude larger than the last. To the point where each rarity is fundamentally different from one another. A Rare skill can differentiate your build from others of the same class. But an Epic is something beyond even that, it’s something that you should consider changing your entire build over. My first Epic skill made me feel like I had to keep pushing and dominate people. Most Epics often have something similar… it’s probably because of how much the concepts tie into it.”

The more he elaborated the more he felt like he was on the right track. The realmnet had cursory hypotheticals about concepts. He had lived it.

“My Quasi-Legendary class orbs were basically entities of their own. Concepts so deep that they couldn’t be me. But they existed because of the Trial System’s support.”

Was it instinct? His class? He just had a feeling he was on the right track.

“That’s the reason why there’s no such thing as Quasi-Legendary skills. A skill can’t–by definition, have so much conceptual weight shoved into it without it changing me as a person. But classes and objects can. Concepts can be shoved into it without fundamentally changing who you are.”

“But there’s Legendary skills, right?”

“Yes, and the Trial System never offers a Legendary on its own. It helps stabilize them when they manifest but adventurers have to earn it themselves…” Ryan shook his head. “No, I don’t know enough about Legends to say for certain, but I think the realmnet is somewhat right on this one. Quasi-Legend is a definition pushed by the Trial System when something has too much conceptual weight but it hasn’t made the fundamental shift to breaking through to the Legendary tier.”

All of them were just staring at him. Ryan blinked, a little confused as to what had happened either.

Barry was a little cautious. “You should pick up [Conceptual Meditation].”

“I intend to. I’m just thinking about keeping it a secret and only practicing it in the Trials.”

“Why?”

“I want to keep a card hidden to surprise her when needed.”

“What’s with the skills?” Milock asked, confused. “[Class Change] and [Conceptual Meditation]? Shouldn’t you be offered way more skills than that?”

“There’s not enough people with Quasi-Legendary classes sharing their skill offerings to say for sure. It could be that my class just considers every single skill part of its offerings, or that those two skills are prerequisites before getting offered the next skills.”

Barry steamrolled over Milo and Ryan’s discussion. “You shouldn’t hold back on trying [Conceptual Meditation] in The Realm. Keeping things hidden is fine if you’re close to challenging her but you’re not there yet. You should be prioritizing increasing your strength for every eventuality.”

Ryan considered it for a bit. He had been considering this for a while.

“I can do both maybe. I told Gamielle about [Conceptual Reaver]. Having a conceptual skill being offered wouldn’t be the most unexpected thing. It’s a risk but I might be able to keep my main class hidden that way.”

Milock seemed dubious. “You’re sure she can’t tell your actual class?”

“I can’t tell if I even have a class. I didn’t know what class it was until it straight up told me. But yeah, there’s a good chance the Witch Tyrant can see through it all.” Ryan scratched his neck. “I really need to figure out a better defense against people reading my emotions if I’m going to lie to her. Grettfield could read me like a book and I’m not sure what to do about that.”

For some reason, that seemed to trigger a reaction from Clara. The girl’s eyes widened in horror as she smacked her forehead.

“Oh shoot, I forgot. Uh, you guys remember that guest book? Well, I saw someone’s name on there that was weird. I mean, there’s a good chance it’s not actually her and even if it is it’s probably nothing but–”

Clara was rambling, vomiting out words in a nervous mess. Barry, as always, was there to help. “Out with it.”

Clara bit her lip. “One of the names was Pinkie. It was recent too.”

Ryan reeled back at the name. “What? Why didn’t you tell us before now?”

“Hello!? I got distracted by that damned book! And that Barry’s last name is Johnson! Besides, when else was I supposed to bring it up?”

“Probably before we trusted an artifact approved by that very [Witch]!”

“I’m sorry, okay!”

Ryan palmed his face, as much as his friends had seemingly become more competent, he had forgotten how stupid they could be.

“She didn’t bug the device.” Barry reaffirmed. “I didn’t let it go out of my hands until I got here, she only observed it.”

Ryan took a moment to think.

“Sure, fine. We can’t constantly operate hoping for the worst case scenario. Besides, she’s more trustworthy than the Secretary. Either way, here’s where we’re at. Grettfield is looking to protect herself from other [Witches]. She also definitely knows we know about Pinkie.”

“What? But I didn’t react at all!”

In fairness to Clara, even Ryan hadn’t noticed any weird reaction from her when she’d read through Grettfield’s guestbook. It didn’t matter, he remembered how Grettfield had stared at Clara at the time.

“She can sense emotions, Clara. She stared at you intensely after you read through that guest book.”

“That’s… that’s a violation of privacy! That’s so messed up.”

“Dragonslayer tier [Witch]. Now you understand what I have to keep dealing with.”

“But surely that’s a breach of hospitality. You can’t just read people’s minds and–”

“Focus.” Barry said, continuing to make sure the conversation was on track. “What do you mean she’s defending from other [Witches]?”

“She said that she’s going to use my volatile mana to defend against other [Witches].”

Clara recoiled at the implication. “But she’s a dragonslayer right? How many [Witches] are there that are powerful enough to attack them?”

While there were actually quite a few evolved adventurers with the [Witch] class, only two of them had publicly reached dragonslayer. Those that had followed the path of the Witch Tyrant had found out that the class had pretty clear weaknesses that made them less than optimal in a team.

“The Witch Tyrant?” Milock offered.

Ryan shook his head. “If it was the Witch Tyrant then Grettfield would be hiding, not putting up defenses in her own home.”

Barry ended up with a better answer. “A coven then, presumably with a dragonslayer tier [Witch] that’s still in their group.”

“Ooh, is it a possible coven fallout?”

Clara being excited about a coven fallout… wasn’t an irregular response. Whenever they did happen, it ended up with massive amounts of petty and serious drama exploding out into the realmnet. Sometimes it got so bad that [Witches] would start publicly snitching on each other. Telling the world about who each of the members had hexed in private.

…even Ryan had to admit that it was great popcorn drama whenever it happened. Especially since the fallouts didn’t tend to involve deaths for those uninvolved.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t at such a petty level.

“Clara, this is clearly a secretive coven with unknown dragonslayer tier [Witches]. This isn’t a joke.”

“And you promised to give one of those [Witches] a steady supply of explodey mana.”

“Thanks Clara.”