Q1 Planning

  I just sat there. As soon as my ass hit the chair and I was in safety and comfort, my brain refused to do any more problem solving, regrets, or even quippy one-liners for future conflicts. It just switched off, and I stared at the opposite bookcase-covered wall for what must have been at least half an hour. Eventually I came back to it, sore enough from sitting immobile that it had probably been longer. I looked around the desk for something to do, and quickly realized I didn't know where to start.

  Power. That was what was needed. Savirak was a problem that simply could not be dealt with without increasing both my personal power and the power of the Guild by leaps and bounds. Then there were the interplanar seals. We'd revealed the location of one, but if the presentation by Verus and Attica from the first day of this challenge could be trusted, we'd need to unseal all four of them. This was likely connected to the mostly blank pages in my Journal that spoke of alignment to the Fae, the Infernal, the Divine and the Eldritch. I didn't know what that alignment would actually do, but so far no information that had come to us directly from the Tower had been a provable lie. So we'd need to do that.

  Then there was Xem's army guarding the Tower proper. As far as I knew, nobody had even thought of scouting it yet. Checkpoint had survived a large-scale siege, but for all of Jea's skill, zombies and summoned hybrids of more or less human capacity was one thing. Whatever Xem would have ready for us would be worse. What's more, it had been suggested that their numbers would be comparable to those of the people of Earth and the tourists combined, in the millions. I wasn't exactly a history buff, but I was fairly certain there had never been a battle in recorded history where such numbers faced off at once. I could scarcely imagine it.

  So. Power. On the one hand, getting back to Starter Village and helping clear and organize quests to grind levels as quickly as possible was definitely an option. Chum had all but said the Tower was designed in such a way that at least some of us would make it through. On the other hand, I had received tools and abilities that lent themselves to alternative paths. A tower full of books, spells that could have their ranks increased, knowledge to uncover about Nothing, about Xem, about the construction of this place. Slamming my face against monsters of roughly my level would not get me those, no matter how much I did it.

  Furthermore, I was the wizard of the Guild. It made sense for someone like Hannah or Marcus to brute-force as much experience as they could for raw stats and abilities, but if there was a question of arcane mystery or rules interaction, people would come to me. My abilities and the Knowledge attribute helped, but the vast majority of what I had to offer came from actual experience and actual skills.

  It came down to timing. If I went out now and ran dungeons and quests, I could level up relatively quickly against the three-month timescale. But sooner or later that would slow down, and eventually killing swathes of monsters would be so inefficient that I'd be back here anyway, thinking of other ways to gain power. I decided I'd seek alternative sources first. More knowledge about the threats I'd face, more use to the Guild without having to be physically present, and most of it achievable without unnecessary exposure to danger.

  Decision made, I stood and called Chum through our bond as I descended to the second-floor war room.

  Chum was standing on the table, smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of whiskey that was roughly half the size of his head. He had found a piece of chalk somewhere and was making small marks on the table's surface that I chose not to examine closely.

  "Got new orders, boss?" he said, sitting down cross-legged.

  "Something like that. I think it's time to put you to work properly," I said, laying a large sheet of paper on the desk and placing four pyramid-shaped paperweights on the corners.

  "Ey! You better not be insinuating I've been slacking off! This has been a hell of an assignment, a worse demon would have cut and run!" Chum said.

  "Not a criticism of you, a criticism of me. I should have been asking you more questions about the Tower, about the mechanics, about magic," I said.

  "Well, that's damn right at least. Ready to start a monster farm?" Chum said.

  "A what?" I said.

  "Monster farm. Set up traps, bait monsters, gain experience while you nap," Chum said.

  "Would that even work?" I said.

  "Sure!" Chum said, then thought about it and took a drink. "Right, probably not. Xem doesn't seem the type to allow that kind of grinding."

  "That's what I thought. But I have been slacking in several important ways," I said.

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  "Alright, let's start with what you know. I'll point out anything you've missed," Chum said. He set down the cigar on the edge of the table, where it balanced with the improbable confidence of something that had done this before.

  I started writing at the top of the sheet.

  "First is the most obvious. Spell tiers. I can think of, hold on-" I flipped open my spellbook to double-check. "Three, maybe four spells we can rank up without any real risk. Two or three more in a controlled environment."

  "Remember that flicker spell, that should be in there," Chum said, and I wrote that down along with Friendly Face, Wood-Stone Transmutation, Conjure Greasefire and Mind Worm.

  "Alright, next is skills. I haven't really focused on them because they all seem so utility, but they're useful. Just not sure if they're comparable to the boosts from level-ups," I said, making a new column.

  "Should you do skills? Does Beelzebub smell of farts? You're a wizard. You're human. Wizards need to know things. Humans learn skills faster. Your Knowledge attribute is as good as it gets among humans. Learning academic skills should be about as fast for you as anyone in the Tower can manage. Start with getting Arcane Theory to 5, then go through every subject the Tower recognizes as an academic skill," Chum said.

  "What about Elder Speech and Elder Script?" I said, thinking of the two skills I'd gained from my abilities.

  "Dangerous, but you've put the points into it, it'd be a waste to avoid it entirely. Doubt you'll find anything in the libraries, but try deciphering your spell chants. That should be a start," Chum said. As the conversation continued he got more animated, stood up and began walking across the sheet itself, pointing at sections for emphasis, leaving small sooty footprints along the margin.

  "Do you know them?" I said.

  "Hell no. Look, Lex Infernal is a whole separate arcano-linguistic syntax. I don't want to risk muddling it up," Chum said.

  I was a bit disappointed. If it couldn't be learned from books, a tutor would be the obvious choice, but I didn't see myself finding one soon, unless I could get an audience with Xem himself. Which seemed unlikely to go well.

  "What about other skills? Athletics, stealth, that sort of thing?" I said.

  "It's iffy. Your stealth is already better than most wizards would ever have, full stop. And it'll be slow to level now that it's well out of the human boost range. The relationship between attributes and skills isn't direct, but think about it this way: if your Stamina was 6 you could run all day to raise your Athletics. You don't have that, and you have no way to get it. So I'd mostly focus on knowing things. Artifice might be a different story," Chum said.

  I wrote down dozens of skills I wanted to increase, focusing on the academics. I hadn't even considered that I could learn biology and medicine at an accelerated rate, but the applications were obvious. I didn't know what a level 5 in Medicine would represent, but I'd spent a decade using spreadsheets professionally on Earth and had only reached level 6 in that. I doubted it would be useless.

  "Alright, now I want your thoughts on the challenge and on Xem," I said.

  "He's a psycho and the challenge is suicide. Next," Chum said.

  "I mean, what do you think these seals are about? Why does removing them matter?" I said.

  "First of all, it means that Yngarothrax Xem is one arrogant motherfucker," Chum said.

  "Explain," I said. I wrote 'arrogant motherfucker' at the head of a new column.

  "If it is what I think it is, and I'm pretty sure it is, Xem has sealed off the ability of entities from the higher and lower planes to interfere with the Tower," Chum said.

  "That just seems like a smart thing to do if you can?" I said.

  "Sure, obviously. Anything breaking this many interplanar laws basically requires it, or else you'd need to conceal the whole operation completely. The arrogant part is that he left the seals on this side of reality," Chum said.

  "So you're saying that if the seals are removed, Xem would be in danger from devils and fae?" I said.

  "I'm saying that when you remove the Divine Seal, gods are going to be able to interfere with matters here. At least as much as they can on prime materials," Chum said.

  A prime material plane being, more or less, a normal natural universe, from what I understood.

  "So why would he do it?" I said.

  "Because it makes the game more fun? I don't know, it'd be like-you got police on Earth?" Chum said.

  "Sure," I said.

  "It'd be like building a forest for hunting people and then giving your captives the means to contact the constabulary, as part of the game. He's either so far gone that he doesn't mind drawing fire from the Barons of Hell and the Infinite Pantheon, or powerful enough that he can control how much they'll actually interfere. Probably both, from what I've seen of how this place was built," Chum said.

  "Should we do it?" I said.

  "Are you insane? Did you listen to the metaphor at all? If you were on a people-hunting island and your host allowed you to call in the National Guard, would you not call them just because it's part of his plan? It's not about should. You have to, if you want any chance," Chum said.

  "Okay, okay. Long-term priority number three," I said.

  "Sounds about right," Chum said.

  He finished the whiskey and took a drag of the cigar deep enough that the room now smelled of particularly sulfuric tobacco. He held the smoke for a moment and let it out slowly, watching it curl toward the ceiling with a satisfaction I found slightly concerning.

  "Listen, boss. We've been over this. You want to break the game at some point, sure, but you don't have the tools for it yet. Keep playing it. You've done it smart so far, more or less," he said.

  I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my temples. It seemed like a big deal, but there was nothing to be done about any of it before dealing with Savirak.

  "Okay, final item. The game. Xem. The actual plot and lore of this place. I need to know more, and Knowledge skills aren't going to cover it," I said.

  "Same answer. Xem's lackeys brought you information about where to find more. Dungeons. You should be clearing dungeons regardless, the experience and loot are better there than anywhere else you've found. Clear them, and look for threads that lead somewhere," Chum said.

  We kept plotting for a few hours after that, but the core of the plan was beginning to take shape. Most of my days would be spent reading and casting magic in specific ways to advance my ranks. I would join as many dungeon groups as I could find with the Guild. And I would help the Guild stay organized and alive by disseminating spells and advice where I could.

  And thus began the time of training for the battle against Savirak.