Exploiting Privileged Knowledge for Profit – Part 1

Everyone was extremely battered from the fight—especially our two main attackers, Keil and Fianna. The elf had a nasty gash on her leg that was covered in coagulated blood mixed with dirt from the mountainside. Tanney conjured some water to clean up the wound, but it still needed proper medical attention.

“I can cast Heal, so I managed to stop the bleeding, but…” Fianna said after sitting down next to Chloe. She had a sort of halo of light around her, proof she had her <Greater Heal> charged up and ready to go.

“No worries! I can patch up you with the skill I just got in the church. That’s why I didn’t participate in the battle, after all! Here goes! Greater Heal!”

The surrounding halo dissipated, and a ball of greenish light washed over Fianna. The dry gash seemed to knit itself back together in front of my eyes.

“Thank you, Chloe,” Fianna said, in her usually curt and dismissive tone, although she had a rather soft expression.

The priestess didn’t respond immediately. She just stared at the elf, eyes wide-open.

What’s up with her?

“Chloe?” I said, touching her arm gently.

That, apparently, brought the priestess back to herself.

“Ah-ah, it’s nothing! No problem. Now let me get over to Keil…”

Fianna and I shared a glance, her eyes asking me what had just happened—but I didn’t know either, so I just shrugged.

“You two sure have a habit of staring into empty space, don’t you?”

Now that she mentions it…

I gave her a wry grin. “I suppose.”

With Chloe on healing duty for the time being, I had nothing much to do, so I followed Tanney, who had gathered and brought back the pile of Divine Canisters that dropped from the Cave Dragon.

“Did we get anything good?” I asked.

“Oh! Takashi! We did, yes!!” She said with a wide smile, her tail swishing behind her.

All in all, the Elder Cave Dragon dropped a bunch of mundane items—meat, its claws, teeth, and hide—but that wasn’t what Tanney was excited about.

“So many high quality Fire and Earth Crystals. These are going to be useful to power my magic back to how it used to be.”

On one hand, Tanney held a light yellow, perfectly cubic crystal; and on the other, a red tetrahedron, both filling her entire hand. A crystal that size was probably enough to raise someone’s respective elemental magic EXP by at least 500 points, or even more. Her eyes were sparkling even more than the magic crystals themselves.

Guess she’s an Alchemist through and through.

“So, Takashi!” Keil began, slapping my back again—hard. “Have you considered what name to give it?”

“It?”

“Yes, your Polis! Luribel was just Luribel, but this place doesn’t have a name, right?”

“A name? Huh…”

A name for my Polis. I couldn’t register it or anything with the game systems, since those didn’t exist anymore, but I might as well give it a name.

Right now, this place is just a bunch of rocks with access to a treasure cave, huh…?

“Okay, how about this? The name of this place shall be—Petra.”

Keil responded with a toothy grin, Tanney had her mind in the crystals, and Chloe answered with a smile that struck me as quite genuine.

* * *

After everyone was healed up, and all the spoils had been collected, the Airdrake crew, Chloe, and I reconvened in the newly-christened Petra. The outcome of the battle had left quite a mess behind—the terrain was a mix of melted spikes created by the Cave Dragon, partially cooled lava that made stone rivers of igneous rock, and ruins of the buildings destroyed by said lava flow. To add insult to injury, the Airdrake itself was also partially deflated, and we wouldn’t be going anywhere until that was repaired.

Thankfully, a single zap of the Debuggun repaired the hole itself, but the deflation was another story.

“I guess it couldn’t bring the helium back,” I said offhandedly.

“No worries. That’s why we have Tanney on the crew,” Fianna responded.

“Ah! Right! I’ll get on with it right away!”

The fox girl disappeared inside the Airdrake, likely starting to work on producing the helium needed to refill the balloon. As for the rest of them—

“Can you handle the cave on your own?” The boss asked. “Keil and I need to protect Tanney just in case a monster shows up.”

“Don’t worry! We should be fine.”

“Okay, then you two go out as soon as possible before it gets dark.”

I glanced at Chloe, who nodded with way more enthusiasm than what was needed.

Guess even Demon Queens love some pretty shiny rocks.

“Alright! Thanks for this, you all. Good luck with the repairs. We’ll be right back!”

It was finally time to do what we came here for—getting those gemstones.

* * *

“I really hope all this work was worth it,” Yzara said, her voice echoing in the cavern walls.

“Don’t worry, it will. Probably.”

“That’s not very reassurin’, ya know.”

Yzara and I had finally plunged into the cave previously guarded by that Elder Cave Dragon. Thanks to her <Light Orb>, we didn’t need much equipment other than a pickaxe and some supplies. However, I knew it wouldn’t be easy getting those gemstones. The easy pickings were probably exhausted by now, meaning we’d have to plunge deep into the cave to find anything worthwhile.

But my Prospector skill is definitely pinging something.

It felt like a slight prickling sensation on my skin, roughly in intensity to the amount of, and in the direction of the precious minerals—straight ahead and downwards. With that slight reassurance, we proceeded deep into the cave.

Soon, the light from the entrance disappeared, and the air became progressively colder and damper. All around us were leftover mining equipment and other remains of human activity from long ago. Fortunately, it seems the White Death hadn’t extended its reach this far down, so we wouldn’t have any problems on that front. I still had my Debuggun out just in case. Incidentally, the Debuggun couldn’t reset any items that spawned with the terrain, meaning I couldn’t use it to cheese my way into infinite gemstones by restoring the mine to how it was before.

“Let’s take the right here,” I said when we reached a fork in the road.

The cave was quiet—unusually so. And I don’t mean just the surrounding environment. My companion, who was usually the first to chat up a storm and complain, was as quiet as a mime.

“What’s up? It’s not like you to be this pensive.”

“I was just thinkin’ ‘bout how I really am being an adventurer right now.”

Well, I couldn’t deny it. Our progression from almost getting swallowed by the White Death to cave diving for gemstones was the kind of story we strived to give Arcforge players when making the game.

“It feels kinda nice… a change of pace from all the demonic stuff I used to get up to.”

“Oh? The Demon Queen doesn’t like being a demon?”

“No, that’s not it. I still like it, of course. It’s in my veins, ya could say. But…” She paused for a moment. “It does get to be a bit monotonous.”

“So does that mean we can stop striving to get your class back?”

“Ya wish, ya wannabe Hero,” she said haughtily. “I still need my power to kick the White Death back into its maker, whoever that was.”

“Right.”

Now it was my time to ponder in silence. What the hell was the White Death, even? There had never been any glitch like this in the beta. It managed to infect half the world, and it came from a mob. But other than that, we just had no clue.

“Why are ya staring at your little tool?” Yzara said, interrupting me. “Ya being this quiet gives me the creeps.”

“Oh, sorry, I was just thinking… what do you think the White Death is?”

“Me? No clue. Pro’bly some god or another’s concept of a joke.”

“Eh.”

I shrugged. I didn’t really feel like I should continue the conversation. This was a rather dangerous territory to traverse, considering that I knew such gods and powers were created by my team and I.

“Hey, Takashi,” Yzara suddenly said after a few moments of silence. “Come to me straight. Yer not just a normal hero, ain’t ya?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. Ya know way too much about how this world works, and have knowledge even I don’t. And then there’s that little gun of yers. How does it work? And what exactly are all those numbers?”

“Well…”

I opened my mouth to start saying something—almost wanting to throw it all out there and tell Yzara what this world really was. But I bit my lip just in time. Who knows what she would do if she knew the truth? Obviously, it’s not as if she could even do much as she was. However, her sealed class still was a grenade ready to be blown if the pin was taken out.

“I’ll tell you when the time is right, okay?”

I glanced at her to see her raise an eyebrow.

“Yeah? Sure, that works for me—as if!”

“Sorry, sorry. I just… don’t think it’s a good idea to tell anyone just yet.”

This time, it was her who shrugged.

“More or less what I expected. Well, I don’t really care, as long as ya help me get my class back.”

This conversation proved to be somewhat fruitful at filling up time, as we soon found ourselves in an area of the cave that seemed unexplored. The remnants of the previous mining operations had vanished, and the walls of the tunnel were starting to become rockier and more jagged.

“We must be getting close to the end of the explored area,” I said.

“Good. I’m gettin’ tired of this cave already.”

No sooner than she said that, though, our path was rudely interrupted by the biggest enemy of a miner—a wall.

“Guess we know why they stopped explorin’ this way. Should we try another tunnel, I reckon?”

“Nah, wait. Let me use my Prospector skill.”

I activated my skill, which allowed me to sense if there were any valuable ore around. And immediately, my sixth sense began tingling—way more than it ever had before.

“We’re definitely close to a bunch of gemstones, though. I think this might be a false wall.”

“Bah! As if it’s that convenient. Ya’ll just be wastin’ yer time.”

Arcforge’s world—and especially its underground—were partially procedurally generated. However, my fellow developers often went and tinkered with the created terrain to make it more interesting to explore. One such “interesting things” was to block certain passages in natural caves to force players to use a skill to know where more rewards might be hiding.

“Nah, trust me on this. I’m pretty sure there’s something on the other side.”

“More of yer ‘secret knowledge’, huh? Fine, I’ll trust you.” Then she plopped down on some vaguely stool-shaped rock. “I’ll be here eatin’ somethin’ while ya waste yer mana. I was gettin’ tired of walkin’, anyway.”

Better done than said, she proceeded to take out some field rations and munched on them in a very non-priestess-like fashion.

Alright, let’s get this done, then!

I did bring a pickaxe to mine around, but I certainly didn’t feel like swinging that thing wildly. Instead, I could just rely on my Earth magic to do the bulk of the work.

“Earth Destroyer!” I called out, using the Wisp’s Staff to aim.

A chunk of rock from the tunnel wall was turned into sand, leaving a basketball-sized crater in the rock. My Earth Magic wasn’t nearly as powerful as Tanney’s, but I could still use basic skills like this.

Maybe for next time I’ll hire her to come down here and help me burrow a tunnel.

I proceeded to call out the <Earth Destroyer> skill multiple times, making a narrow passageway into the rock, so that only a single person could pass. The amount of sand created was getting to be a bit much, though, and I kinda had to shuffle it away with my feet.

“Aren’t ya gettin’ tired? I’m tellin’ ya, yer wastin’ yer time.”

“Shut up and let me work. I’m sure I’m close to the other side.”

“That said, if you find a spring, ya can make a little beach inside the mountain! There’s already enough sand here to make a lil’ castle and everythin’!”

I elected to ignore her snickering.

“Earth Destroyer!”

Another basketball-size chunk of rock was atomized. This time, however, I immediately felt a rush of air coming from the pitch darkness created in front of me.

“There! I broke through a cavern!” I said, hearing the echo of my voice coming from the chamber in front of me.

“What? Really?!”

“Yeah, but it’s totally dark here. Can you give me some light?”

“Sure. Light Orb!”

Without really needing to explain what to do, an orb of light was conjured in the cave ahead, illuminating it for myself.

“And now, can ya see anythin’?”

I immediately recognized this situation and Yzara’s accidental lead in, and responded the only way I could.

“Yes, wonderful things.”

Guess she won’t catch that reference, though.

But I was being genuine with my observation. Just like Tutankhamen’s tomb, this cave had been sealed off for a long time—maybe a couple of millenia short compared to Tut’s chamber, but still for over a hundred years. No Hero had ever found it, and since the White Death hit, no one had been in this area. Plus, one of my fellow developers probably decided to juice up the prizes just to give that massive rush to whoever found it.

They probably never expected it to be one of their own, though.

“So? What is it?” Yzara asked.

I didn’t take my eyes off of the cave, not really believing what I was seeing.

“It’s a cave filled with gems.”