Larry’s POV

“Come in!” I called to the knock on my office door. Mike poked his head in, followed quickly by Emily. “Just in time! Come on and pop a seat, I think Derrick is about to begin his battle.”

“I still think you asked too much by having him remove his equipment.” Emily said, sitting down.

“Eh, he knows what we have planned and was all for it. You know he’s going to have an absolute blast revealing that surprise later. Beer?” I asked, reaching in to my minifridge.

“Sure.” Emily and Mike both responded. “So, hows the raid looking so far?”

“You haven’t been watching?” Mike asked. “They’ve hit 200 deaths, and barely got by that Aboleth trap. That was smart on Derrick’s setup. Having monsters that you can’t kill.”

“Oooh, I can see how that would be effective.” Emily started.

“Hush! Here it is!” I called out. “Love the ambiance. Climb the lonely mountain to beat the boss.”

“Hoh damn!” Mike yelled out a few minutes later when the wind spell went off. “What the hell was that? Explosion?”

“Wind gust.” I said after looking some things up on my computer. “Oh, that’s pretty good. It’s a no damage spell, just gives them a not so gentle push.” We continued watching the raid struggle their way up the mountain only to get blown off by an avalanche spell.

“Damn, that’s disappointing.” Mike muttered. “He didn’t even get to use any of his really good spells. What’re we going to do while we wait for the raid to get back?”

“Well, since I have you two here, there’s a proposal from our group of beta testers. Wanna look it over?”

“Gimme gimme gimme!” I said, standing and practically trying to grab whatever was in her hands.

“Easy! I sent it in an email before I came over. Take a look.”

Mike and I both pulled up the email in question, going over the proposal. It only took a minute or two to read the thing, as it was pretty bare bones at the moment. “This has potential.” I muttered. Looking up at Mike, I raised a brow.

“You’re the developer, do you think we could fold it in with the update?”

“I like the layout, but it feels. I dunno. Lacking something.” I replied. “I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“Balance.” Emily said after a minute. “I think it’s a balance issue.”

“How though?” Mike asked. “They’ve got both sides covered. Those for slavery, and those against.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t looking at the bigger picture. Think. Why force them into two separate camps? How many games have done that, only to find out that one side rapidly overtakes the other. They get a boost somehow, and an influx of players. The boost snowballs out of control, and the game is done for. It’s not fun.”

“I see what you’re saying, but how do we balance that?” I asked.

“We have three pantheons; why don’t we introduce a third side into this party?”

Mike and I stared at each other for a second. “Give her another raise.” I ordered. “Genius idea my dear, but what are we going to do for it? Let’s see how you handle the pressure.”

“Well.” She stammered, looking down into her beer for a second. “Let’s assume we can get some of the pantheon involved. The dark gods are obviously going to be all for the slavery aspect, while the light gods against it. I see the gray pantheon being one of two things. First, they can be absolutely neutral. They bind together to defend each other, but otherwise take no stance. Or, they can take the roll of mercenaries. Pay them enough, and they will either protect you or assist with the attack.”

“Ok. Quick answer, I like it.” I continued. “Now, pros and cons of the true neutral.”

“Damn, always putting me on the spot. Alright. Pro. It will appeal to those who don’t want to risk losing their character. Especially at end game levels, they have put in a lot of effort. Some would be absolutely crushed to have lost it. Cons. People will miss out on a good bit of content and challenges, especially if we offer specialty gear. Lack of actually balancing the opposing forces. Um. That’s all I got.”

“Not bad, not bad. Change directions, pros and cons for the mercenary aspect.”

“Ok. Pros. There can be balance of forces, and they can choose how they balance. You could be sent to abduct a character or free a character. That’ll appeal to a lot of people, especially if they can pick and choose their missions. Cons. There’s no option to not partake. That’s not going to sit well with a good bit of our players.”

“Mike, I think she just earned another raise, what’d’ya say?”

“Maybe just a bonus. What about this guys. Can we split the third part into two factions? One true neutral, and one that is pushing for interference? Internal strife always works to get people interested, especially if they can rise through the ranks with a well-timed takeover.”

“Could we have an espionage option?” Emily asked. “Think of this. The mercenaries get a spy class. While a normal captured player has their gear locked to their inventory, the spy has a special slot to hide a dagger and an escape tool. Their job is to break out of the prison camp, wrecking things along the way.”

“Oh that would be so much fun.” I replied, thinking it through. “Hell, they might be able to turn around the entire camp. Free themselves and enslave their captors.”

“Hold that thought, looks like the raid is back for round two.” Mike said. “Oh, one of them found the hidden tunnels.” We watched the fight go on, making small notes about certain parts of the battle.

“Do you think we lowered him too much by taking away his gear?” Emily asked.

“I don’t think so.” I said, leaning forward. “He’s got a massive reach advantage, and that orichalcum sword would negate pretty much any magic attack. Without gear, he’s holding his own while outnumbered 30 to 1. Give him the equipment he’s managed to acquire? He’s gonna be the first multi raid boss challenge.”

“Oh! Lookit!” Mike shouted, bouncing in his seat. “They’re gonna try a hyperbeam!”

“What’s the deal with, oooo. It’s pretty.” Emily said, watching the spear of multicolored light form.

“That’s probably the only magic spell that could do any damage.” I said. “It averages your two lowest elemental resistances and halves it to determine your resistance. How’s he going to, THERE IT IS! YESSSS!” I jumped up when he summoned the Ginnungagap.

“What’s up with that planar summoning?” Mike asked. “It looks like they are standing on an invisible arena in the middle of space.”

“One of our hidden questlines. I knew he had started it, but I didn’t think he would get all the planar summons. You have to get all 9 of the Norse planes before you can earn the gap between dimensions. All those mages are useless for the next ten minutes.”

“Why though? Surely we must have a reasoning.” Emily looked at me.

“Of course. The gap is a place with no magic. All the normal planes claimed the free mana, so spells don’t really work there. That’s the bad thing too, because Derrick has such a highly magical race. Without a suitable free mana level, he loses his racial abilities. The first to go is his regeneration. Then they lose any special vision modes.”

“And since the normal races aren’t magical creatures, they can survive when the summoned creatures were dispersed.” Emily said, nodding. “Ok that makes sense. Oh my, what is that spear?”

We all turned back to the show, watching as Lady Fisticuffs pulled out a special spear. “Oh man, I didn’t realize someone had actually found that.” I said. “That’s one of the spears from the Celtic legends if I remember right. So much history there to choose from.”

“Care to explain a bit for those of us not as well versed as you?” Mike chuckled.

“Fine, fine. They have a lot of legendary weapons, most of which have some pretty gnarly effects. We originally wanted to use the Spear of Lugh, which almost wielded itself it loved battle so much. That seemed a little too powerful, so we combined it with Gae Bolg. That has a few different stories in itself, but we went with the Notched Spear aspect. Those barbs? According to legend they would spread into all the joints in the body and have to literally be cut out after the enemy died. So we gave that to the spear, it can’t be removed until the enemy is dead. Limits it enough that we can get it into the game.”

“Are there any others in there?” Emily asked, leaning forward.

“Well, the god of Truth wields Fragarach. Fitting, as you aren’t able to lie when it is placed at your throat. Durandal is in the hands of the Drow right now. There’s probably a hammer somewhere in the game world.”

“Here we go! Here we go!” Mike started bouncing in his seat. “Finally get to see the phoenix rebirth animations!” I reached across the desk to snag some popcorn and watch as Derrick was reborn to the horror of the raid.

“Oh, that’s brutal. Using obsidian to protect his hand from a makeshift lava gauntlet? I wonder if we’re going to have anyone roasting in their armor.” Emily commented, leaning forward. “Why isn’t he focusing on one person though?”

“Probably so they don’t trap him again.” I replied. “This way everyone is off balance, and more likely to make a mistake. If he can keep up the heat metal penalties, the tanks are going to start dropping fairly quickly.”

“Or if he can get those healers to start tunnel visioning on the tanks, THERE!” Mike shouted, pointing. “Just like that! She was so concerned about keeping her tank alive she forgot to watch the boss, and now her and her guardian are in a puddle of lava.”

“It’s battles like this that I think a lot of players are happy we don’t have full pain.” I said. “Imagine how it would feel to be actually fighting in a volcano?” Both Mike and Emily shuddered at that.

“No thanks. I’m gonna sit here and enjoy my nice, ice cold beer.” Mike said after a second. “Oh, would ya look at that? He managed to get the raid leader at last. That’ll make him feel a bit better about things.”

“Yeah, but I think Derrick was wanting to have at least one entire wipe.”

“Tall order with that many tanks and tank like builds. People really underestimate the pounding a proper guardian build can take.” Emily said. “Plus the guardians are basically meat shields for the healers, you need a way to use the environment against them.”

“I hear that.” I replied. “Oh. Oh my, they are bringing out the big guns.” I said, finally noticing what was floating around Cinderfy. Three intense orbs of blue flame, with that long of a cast time could only mean one thing.

“What’s that?” Mike and Emily both asked as the lions appeared.

“One of the most potent fire summonings available. Not the most powerful individually, but the minimum is to summon three lions and combined with their teamwork is the strongest.”

“I like how they aren’t limited to just fire.” Emily stated. “That, and look how they automatically spread out and attack from three directions at once. I can really see why these are strong.” After a few seconds, she added, “Any chance of meeting flame lion cubs?”

“Ha! Oh that would be a great draw, wouldn’t it?” I laughed. “We could have a petting zoo of summoned beings offspring. The little murder machines always look cute when they are babies.”

“You know.” Mike said after thinking about it for a few seconds. “That might not be a bad idea. See if we can draw some people into the summoner classes. I know the Druid Hordemaster is one of our lowest in popularity.”

“Serious?”

“Yeah.” Emily spoke up. “A lot of people are too worried about trying to min max their characters, they don’t realize the flexibility that summoning can really give. Just look at how Lucy has been in this dungeon. There have been several floors where druids were almost useless, yet she always had some sort of summon that has been helpful. Maybe we could do a week for each of the lowest classes, see if we can boost their popularity somehow.”

“Alright, I’ll get my people on it.” I said. “So we have the special week for low interest classes, and we have the mercenary option for the enslavement of characters. Anything else we can think of?”

“Nope. Two ideas is my limit, especially when the ideas have outnumbered the beers I’ve been given.” Mike said, leaning back in his chair. “Speaking of which, I do believe it’s time for round 2.”

“Here ya go.” I said, handing him another one.

“Wait a second, are they getting more legendary items?” Emily asked. “Doesn’t that seem a little, I dunno, excessive?”

“Yeah. The game gods are responsible for the loot.” I answered. “Part of it is based on what they see the difficulty, and I’m sure they are getting a bonus based on the first assault. I’m just worried about what they are going to be facing in the last leg coming up.”

“You don’t know?” They both asked simultaneously.

“Not all of it. I’ve seen some of the plans, and know what monsters they will be facing, but the gods didn’t want any possibility of interference so we were kindly told to butt out.” I chuckled. “Frankly, I can’t wait.”