Kyle took a deep breath. Crystopia would manage. Somehow.

It might start getting really rocky, though.

He turned his attention back to the stat selection screen. He had an attribute and a skill he needed to pick.

Well… an attribute, at least. His skill was already spoken for.

He was torn between continuing to rank resilience and instead ranking attunement. As much as Braden wanted to brag, Kyle thought resilience was still the more mechanically sound choice. Because Kyle could use HP to power spells, having more HP was basically having more mana. And having more HP increased the HP per minute he recovered as well, so it didn’t even make sense to take attunement for the mana regeneration. Plus, resilience gave him pain resistance. Kyle liked pain resistance.

But upon further reflection, if avoiding pain was his goal, then did it really make sense to use his HP as a mana battery? Braden could cast more spells before using magic physically hurt him. That might end up making or breaking a life-or-death situation. If Kyle hesitated to cast a spell because he was afraid of the pain, it could get him killed. Maybe the right call was to balance resilience and attunement? On the other hand, maybe if he just kept putting points into resilience, it would one day stop hurting to burn HP as mana.

Hoping that one day they’d find a way to reset attributes so Kyle could do some more testing, Kyle ranked attunement so he’d have a larger mana buffer before needing to tap his HP.

For his skill, Kyle picked “Circle casting”, a hidden skill unlocked as an option by having both Spellcraft and an “Artistic” skill; apparently cartography counted. When Aubrey heard the brief description of circle-casting, she insisted.

As the trance ended, Kyle fell to his feet, managing to retain his balance. He nodded to Braden, who approached to level up next.

Dvorak looked put out. Kyle understood.

“He’s a greedy scumbag, you know,” Dvorak said after a few moments of silence. “Not a political dissident.”

“Say what?” Kyle asked.

“Braden. This whole ‘I’m in it for the people’ thing didn’t start until suddenly it meant he got the best loot anybody’s ever seen. Don’t let it get to you. Can I see the robes?”

Kyle handed over the robes for Dvorak to identify, and sighed. “I hope so. But maybe he’s got a point. Do you think I’m playing favorites?”

“No,” Dvorak said. “I think the people who do stuff should have the stuff they need to do the stuff they do. And yeah, that means some people get more stuff. But it’s all in the name of getting even more stuff so more people can have more stuff. And Braden can stuff it.”

Kyle smiled and rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”

Dvorak tossed the robes back. “Acid resistance. Slightly higher quality. Nothing too special.”

“I’ll probably stick with the leather for now,” Kyle said, stowing the robes. They were virtually weightless, so he might as well hold on to them.

After levelling, they needed to figure out what to do about Mason. Kyle was almost positive that the designers wouldn’t change his race without his permission. The Wightwright mentioned he’d “attempt” the ritual on the corpse, which seemed like an easy out for letting the player respawn as normal. Even then, leaving Mason’s corpse in a room where the Wightlord and Wightwright would likely respawn seemed unwise. But they couldn’t exactly take Mason down the ladder with them, so…

With a highly discomfiting sound, Mason’s body hit the ground eight stories below.

“Glad he couldn’t feel that,” Dvorak commented as Kyle caught his breath. Heaving Mason’s massive corpse through the window frame had been far harder than he’d expected.

Avina was waiting for them in the graveyard when they reached the bottom of the ladder.

“I’m so glad to you’re safe!” Kyle heard Avina say behind him as he climbed down the ladder. “I saw Mason had died, and some of my buffs had gone inactive, and… and then Mason fell out a window and… and you’re still okay! Thank goodness.”

“Well, okay is a bit of of an overstatement,” Kyle said, climbing off the ladder. He turned, met Avina’s worried gaze, then looked towards Mason and motioned. “I mean, Mason’s dead, Braden’s hurt, and Dvorak nearly got turned into a wight.”

“But at least… wait, what?”

“Not even close,” Dvorak said. “The last boss wasn’t a very convincing salesman.” Dvorak hopped off the ladder several feet early and absorbed the landing shock with his digitrade Lagotherre legs. “He wouldn’t even mention retirement matching or a 401k.”

“I’ll explain later,” Kyle said. “Was everything calm down here?”

“Yeah,” Avina said. “Nothing more rose while you were up there,” she said, glancing around the graveyard nervously.

“Did you get the stuff the skeleton dropped when he fell out the window?”

“Yeah,” Avina said. “Some silver and some armor. A neat looking sword, I guess. Some scrolls. It says they’re scrolls of soulbinding. I’ve got five.”

“One each?” suggested Kyle.

“Oh, what, you’re splitting loot now?” asked Braden.

“Sure. I mean, if one of us has an item that’s really important, I’m sure Dvorak or Avina would be willing to get it soulbound to somebody,” said Kyle.

“Yeah,” said Avina. “Did anybody find something that would be useful for the town?”

“No,” Kyle said, glaring at Braden. “Nothing the town can really use. Come on. Let’s get home before Dvorak turns into a pumpkin.”

* * *

In the coming weeks, it became very clear that yellow items were the greatest threat to Crystopia’s order they’d yet faced. Braden’s staff was mostly dealt with; Braden didn’t divulge how amazing it was, probably because he was afraid other people would want it. And Kyle certainly wouldn’t tell anybody. He and Dvorak were the only people who knew the squandered potential of the staff.

No drops except the yellow ones were rare enough to cause much of a stir; even “normal” enchanted items were common enough that eventually people would get what they wanted if they waited their turn and traded amongst themselves, under Kyle or Aubrey’s organizational guidance.

But other yellow items began appearing in chests and on defeated enemies, ones that were either unique or just incredibly rare. It was too infrequent to even estimate the drop rates, but the two they found were both close calls.

One time as a group of villagers was running through the goblin mines, one of the goblins was carrying a rune-carved mythril axe. Dvorak cast identify on it, and the holder, a young elf, looked at the axe in shock. It seemed identifying an object in a player’s hand gave the holder the item’s info as well.

The axe ignored half the target’s armor when it struck, increased the wielder’s strength by a level, was indestructible, and had high base damage to boot.

Thankfully, the elf had a crush on Kyrie, the elven girl who took woodcutting as her skill, and asked if he could give her the axe. With the axe dividing the tree’s “armor” score in half, Kyrie could fell a hardwood in three strokes. Word got around that it was a legendary “woodcutting” axe, and Kyle was content to leave it at that.

The other gold item was found by Raphael, dropped by the Wightlord in Wight’s Hold. He was thrilled to find it, and proffered it to Kyle on one knee. Kyle accepted it, roleplaying a magnanimous air, and thanked Raphael for his “loyal and dedicated service to the crown”. That seemed to make Raphael’s whole week.

Dvorak identified it as the Sword of St. Draecis, and it permanently increased the wielder’s strength by one rank each time the wielder killed a dragon, with a limit of once per dragon species. It was highly powerful, but also highly situational. It had decent base stats, so Kyle let Raphael hold onto it, and Raphael wore it with great pride. Kyle was grateful for Raphael’s roleplaying; he would tell anybody who asked that Kyle “Entrusted him with the sword’s stewardship.” It subtly re-enforced the economic paradigm Kyle was hoping for.

Still, it was only a matter of time before a piece of yellow loot rolled by the wrong person threw Crystopia into chaos, and Kyle had no clue how he was going to approach it. It was just a time bomb, waiting to go off.