Hope Engine Read online

  ‘Right. Jolly good. For now, if you could give it to those guys over there digging the well, that would be great.’

  ‘Thy bidding be done, my master.’

  ‘How lovely, Horace, thank you.’ I turned to Angie. ‘Quick question. Are all followers this… slavish?’

  ‘Not at all. It depends on your starting class somewhat, but mainly it’s down to them. Their background, how you meet them, how you win them over to your cause, how you interact with them generally, and their current happiness level.’

  ‘Oh yeah. I had a quick inspection of a few of them. Horace is happy, but everyone else is sad.’

  Angie held up a finger. ‘Accuracy is important here. Are they sad, or are they unhappy?’

  I thought back to what I had actually seen when I’d viewed Horace’s little congregation. ‘They were all around 40% happiness, with full health and mana bars. A small smiley face with a frown next to their happiness bar.’

  ‘What colour was the face?’

  ‘I’m going to say yellow?’

  ‘That’s fine then. They’re just unhappy. If it was blue, that would make them sad, which caps their happiness at 50%. Sad workers are inefficient workers. They can be sad for any number of reasons, for example if their friend dies in a fight.’

  ‘Ooh, emotional status effects? Huh, that’s kind of cool. What other effects are there?’

  ‘There are only four. Neutral, sad, anger, jubilation. They will all have different effects on their behaviour and happiness levels, but they all also have both positive and negative effects.’

  ‘Sadness has a positive effect?’

  ‘In niche circumstances, yes. We can come to that when one of them changes status. For now, perhaps another shovel and some well digging, if your Thirst stat is anything to prioritise your life by. You need to drink enough to reset your Thirst bar every forty-eight hours.’

  I opened my character window and saw that, as Angie said, my Thirst bar was creeping up every minute. I was now at 60% Thirst. So, by Angie’s logic, I had nineteen hours left before I died. The well had needed days to complete. Oh dear.’

  I made four more shovels, taking my woodworking up to the lofty heights of three skill points. I then dug a well, and before I knew it, I was sipping fresh water, refilling my Thirst bar, and revelling in the exp gained from the well completion.

  Or, I thought I was going to be… ‘Where’s the water? I know there’s water here, that’s why I placed it in this exact spot.’

  ‘I suspect, Severo, that you only saw the resource gain number, and missed the requirements number.’

  I gave the tiny girl construct a long stare. ‘You didn’t feel that this should have been mentioned at the time?’

  She shrugged. ‘You were enjoying figuring things out for yourself. Part of my job as your helper is to help you enjoy yourself.’

  I narrowed my eyes at her. ‘How tricksy of you. Fine, what was the requirement?’

  ‘This level of well, in this location, requires five mana to produce water.’

  ‘But it’s a well. Why does a well need mana?’

  ‘Upkeep cost.’

  I groaned and walked over to my Altar. I selected the well from my top-down view and allocated it five of my mana. I’d started off with twenty total mana when I’d placed my first lights but was now at thirty. Angie informed me that was five points from assigning a skill point to confirm my level up, and another five because I placed it into my Mind stat. A very good reason to spend points as soon as I got them. I was now at 23/30 mana for my town upkeep. All fine for now, but I couldn’t go well crazy and place them everywhere. In fact, I didn’t actually have enough total mana to place five debris level wells to get my water intake up to my theoretical 100%. What a nuanced way to control town growth and population. Also, kind of an annoying way. There had to be some method to get more mana aside from just levelling up.

  After I assigned the mana and left the Altar, I asked Angie about the mana limitations.

  ‘There are many ways. Having friends pool their mana in a joint village, or building mana batteries, are the two most common methods.’

  I wanted to ask about the mana batteries, but the hint at having friends join my village sounded more interesting right now and reminded me of the lack of focus I’d been feeling back before I met my followers.

  ‘Yeah, sure. Good, so I’ve been meaning to ask you. I mean, this is all fun, and I’m enjoying learning the systems, but… where’s the storyline? Where are the quests? Where is the interaction with other players?’

  Before Angie could answer, green text in the top right of my view appeared. “Debris Hut complete.” Followed immediately by that now familiar blue text in the bottom right of my view.

  “+5 exp”

  “Level 3! Skill point unlocked. New ability unlocked.”

  I heard the soft crunching of dirt beneath feet and looked around. All the cultists had fallen to their knees and held their hands stretched out in front of them. They chanted three times, ‘The lord ascends!’

  Well, that wasn’t weird.

  Chapter 12: Fog and Oysters

  This time I put more thought into where my hard-earned skill point should go, but after a lot of debate between myself, Angie, and even Horace – who suggested I put the point into “World Domination” despite me telling him that wasn’t how it worked – I placed the point into Mind again. Angie agreed that at early levels it was one of the most versatile stats, as it allowed for an easier construction side of the game due to the increased mana. It also allowed for easier scholarly pursuits, but I hadn’t found any of those yet.

  With my stat point placed, and me now officially a level three warlock, I finally had time to drink from the well. My Thirst meter filled up, but much more importantly, I tasted fresh water for the first time in far too long. Oh yeah, the sensation designers nailed this one. That moment as the surface tension of the water holds it back from quenching every corner of your mouth before it bursts through with cool, liquid awesome! I was actually considering letting my Thirst drop lower next time so that I could get an even more intense water drinking experience. Well, something only a really thirsty person could appreciate, I guess.

  I’d created a larger light close to the well and set it into the ground. It was still a bubbling orb of magic, but it served quite well as a camp fire, and everyone started to gather round. Some of the cultists had dragged a few logs, or rolled stones, to act as makeshift seats.

  Finally, I had time to check my new ability, the thing that really should have been the most exciting part about levelling up.

  “Corruption. Hits an enemy for 2% of their total Life every 3 seconds. Lasts for 60 seconds.”

  I considered this new ability. On the plus side, I finally had a spell that didn’t include the word “shadow”. On the down side, everything else. I had been excited to get my first Damage Over Time, or DOT, spell. But only doing 40% of their health over an entire minute? Fights could last seconds, what was the point of this? At this point, while sat around in mild confusion, I remembered that I had a weird construct childlike thing whose entire reason for being here was to answer these kinds of questions.

  Angie was sat next to me on one of the logs that Horace had commandeered as “For the master’s use”, so I poked her arm. ‘Why is this DOT so weak?’

  She dropped the stick she’d been absently stabbing the ground with. ‘So many reasons, Severo. So very many reasons. You’re not yet high enough level to start modifying your spells, a further aspect of crafting, so everything you have is a very default version. DOTs tend to start weak, but have more modification slots than direct damage abilities.’

  ‘Wait, wait, wait. Spells can be modified?’

  ‘I see you haven’t received that skill up for observation yet. Yes, spells can be modified. That’s part of how you specialise your class into the role you want.’

  ‘Right. So, adding a plus damage to my Shadowbolt makes me a damage dealer, but addi
ng a…’

  She rolled her eyes at me. ‘You could add a leech and melee mod. The leech will give you health back with every hit, and the melee will make it hit for significantly more damage while restricting the spell to melee only.’

  My mind started racing at the possibilities. So much I could do! I could stick leech on everything, even my Shadow Skin so I get health when I’m hit. I could be a tanking god, and basically never take damage. What other types of modifications were there? The possibilities!

  ‘So, between the abilities I choose to have in my six slots, and the modifications I make to them, that defines my role? So, I’m a warlock, and although I’m clearly starting as a ranged damage dealer, I could be a melee damage dealer? Or even a ranged tank? A healer?’

  ‘Yes. You can perform any role. Even hybrid roles, although inevitably a hybrid sacrifices certain abilities and efficiencies in a single role to be able to cover another role, but yes. The world is, as they say in your reality, your oyster. Oysters don’t exist in Tulgatha, by the way.’

  I was about to ask a question about the oysters thing but stopped myself from getting derailed. ‘Okay, so let’s modify a spell. What do I do?’

  Angie held up a finger. ‘No. I said, you were too low level. You need to be level ten before you can unlock the first mod slot on any spell.’

  ‘Okay. Okay, cool, that’s fine. Let’s level.’ I got to my feet, ready to head back into the forest. If I picked enough of those damn vomit weeds, then I’d level up eventually.

  ‘A good idea, actually. Would you like some guidance?’

  ‘Boy, would I!’

  ‘You should try your first situation. You’ll probably lose, but in this remote location, there won’t be a better way of levelling up. Unless some big change happens, of course.’

  ‘Okay! So, grind some situations, level up, get modifiable spells, wreck fools. How do I start?’

  ‘Time to put your new hut to good use. You need to build a Situation portal.’

  Without wasting any time, I ran to my Altar and started building. Sure enough, there was a portals tab. They were ordered by destination and size. Most of them had destinations I’d never heard of.

  ‘Capital cities,’ Angie said. ‘Some are wilderness locations of special importance, but mostly they’re just cities.’

  I kept scrolling through them and noticed something. ‘They all have the same mana cost. Twenty five mana. They can’t all be the same distance though, right?’

  ‘That’s correct, vastly different distances. But magic isn’t linear.’

  That made sense, I suppose. A portal’s a portal, whether its destination is the next hut over, or the other side of the world.

  I changed tab to look at the Situation portals. There were four sizes. Solo, group, raid, and titan. They didn’t need a huge amount of explanation, and the only one I could afford to run the mana cost of was the solo.

  I selected it, which brought up the placement grid over my village, and selected the currently unused hut. My vision zoomed in and allowed me to place the portal in any orientation I wanted. I couldn’t quite tell what the portal actually looked like though. Maybe the icon wasn’t showing properly? A bug, maybe? Oh well. I placed it, and empowered it with ten mana, leaving me at 23/40. Getting close to running out, which naturally made me anxious, but mana was there to be used. There was no difference between having twenty spare mana or one spare mana – no degradation or performance loss – so spending it all made sense.

  Angie chimed in again. ‘Situations can take some time. It could be hours, or days. I’d recommend setting a build queue in your absence.’

  Ooh, what a good idea. I spent a long time searching through tabs and dragging building blueprints around trying to find the optimum placements for mana cost and resource production. There were buildings I didn’t see the point of, like the observatory, and buildings I couldn't afford, like the treasury. I also didn’t exactly have a need for that one just yet. It could be an aspiration. I could still only make things at the debris level, but I planned my village out for the future. I placed a barracks first, as the minions would need somewhere to live. Their happiness meters had filled up a bit since getting access to drinkable water, but the more the better. Next to the barracks I put a training room. At debris level, it wasn’t very effective, but I placed a sparring ring, and a debris dummy for them to practice their slashing. On the other side of the clearing I placed a lumber mill. We were surrounded by wood, so the placement wasn’t to get an optimal harvest, just to keep it separate from the military side. The lumber mill was the big investment here, as it not only harvested wood, but allowed it to be treated before use. It wasn’t showing that that would give me any benefits, but maybe it would make everything look a bit less sharp and uninviting. Finally, I placed a wall, more a fence really, around the entire clearing, right up against the tree line. Now, the entire clearing was far too big for me to fill up – it was easily a few kilometres wide – so I then placed another circular fence at a more reasonable size. It ended up being a single kilometre in diameter, and I then ran another fence through the middle of it and quartered the circle. That gave me a military quarter, with my barracks and training room. A living quarter, with my two huts. Then two empty quarters, which I would no doubt fill up soon enough. I’d placed the lumber mill as close to the forest as possible. Hopefully the minions would appreciate the commute.

  That would take them a few days to build, maybe even weeks, so I was happy to leave it at that.

  I left my Altar and opened my eyes to the small girl standing motionless in the corner of the room.

  ‘Everything okay, Angie?’

  She blinked and looked around, as if only just noticing where she was. ‘Yes, of course. My attention was elsewhere, that’s all.’

  That was worrying, but I left it at that.

  ‘Okay, so take me through situations.’

  She exited the hut and motioned for me to follow. ‘Situations are very varied. There are thousands that could appear, and they all have different objectives and give different rewards. It’s best to just throw yourself into it, especially for your first time.’

  We stopped outside the second hut. The one where the door still worked, so I couldn’t see inside.

  ‘Right, sure, but can you give me any hints at all?’

  ‘Yes. But I won’t. Just know that death in there is just like death out here. All the same rules still apply. This situation portal is simply throwing you into the middle of the action, nothing else. Also, if not already clear, it doesn’t have to be combat.’

  ‘Oh. So I could be dropped into the middle of being someone’s lawyer on their trial, kind of thing?’

  ‘Possibly.’ She stepped aside and pulled the door open for me. Which was rather comical, as she was tiny, and the door wasn’t exactly precision engineering.

  Inside the hut I saw the situation portal. I now realised why I couldn’t see an icon when trying to place it. When I think of a portal, I think of rune engraved stone pillars, maybe a metal ramp leading up to it as the chevrons engage, who knows. This was just mist. It made the inside of the hut look depthless and infinite.

  I took a deep breath and stepped into the fog.

  Chapter 13: Join The Raid

  Three steps later, and the fog had cleared. There was none in front of me and none behind. What was in front of me, however, was an animal hide. I had spawned in facing the wall of what seemed to be a large tent. I turned around and saw rows of furred skins and oiled clothes. I looked at myself. Okay, I’d kept my own armour. Like Angie said, all a situation is doing is placing you in the thick of the action, it’s not changing anything else.

  I couldn’t quite tell where I was yet. Animal hides in a tent didn’t really give me a huge clue. I listened to whatever I could hear. The tent muffled the outside noise, but there were still occasional sounds. People walking in groups, shoes scratching on loose dirt. Not much to go on.

  I needed to leave the ten
t. Maybe the situation had dropped me behind enemy lines and I was supposed to assassinate someone. How would I know?

  Like magic, a system message popped up in that familiar blue text. “Situation Objective 1: Announce yourself to the guard”.

  Well, that cleared things up. I walked to the entrance of the large tent and opened the surprisingly heavy flap. Stepping into the open, I was hit by a blast of cold, fresh mountain air. A man was stood next to me, leaning on a crude spear. The guard. Now, he wasn’t actually a giant, but he was huge. Maybe he was a subrace of giant, as he was easily eight feet tall, and completely wrapped in leathers and furs. He looked unkempt and ragged, the only concession to civility being his drawn back hair, leaving his face clear.

  ‘Hello guardsman. I’m here. To help?’ My voice faltered as I realised I didn’t actually know why I was here, but oh well.

  He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. ‘Player.’

  ‘Umm, yes?’

  He lazily pointed a huge hand towards a small, snowy hill. ‘You’re needed over there.’

  A little ding as I gained a tiny amount of experience from completing that quest, followed by another message. “Situation Objective 2: Join the front lines”.

  Guard by the tent, join the front lines. Okay, this really was getting right into the thick of things. I hadn’t had any military training, so any army that wanted to put me with the rank and file seemed dubious, but hey, what did I know.

  I started walking, when the giant guard behind me called out, ‘Haven’t seen you before. First time?’

  I turned. ‘Yeah. First situation.’

  He grunted. ‘Sorry about that, kid. Good luck. Some make it through their first time, but… well, you’ll see.’

  I turned and muttered under my breath, making very sure he couldn’t hear, because he could definitely beat me up. ‘Ominous prick. Just tell a guy what’s up, jeez. I mean really. Now I’m just scared.’