@CamelotSun owes about 146k BS to her BASE owner. Normal standards are that someone owns a BASE and pays for the expenses of operating it, the utilities, the storage fee, and basically running anything inside it; just so BASILISK can take back a dollar from the penny. This isn't really necessary, one can just play the game like a normal casual gamer wants to, but the people playing were promised an immersive in-life lived-in experience.

  If one cannot find a BASE or can’t afford the initial deposit, one can rent a space inside the BASE by the owner. They’re real estate agents and landlords, and they’re somewhat a messy bunch since a lot of them are only 22 - 25 years old and don’t know anything about managing tenants.

  @CamelotSun: im not getting it why do i owe 146 k WTF

  @xxxpentacionexxx: well, it's cause you kept the assemblers running all day for the past couple months

  @CamelotSun: i i didn't know they had to be turned off when im not in the room

  @xxxpentacionexxx: it was in ur contract; the assemblers build up mold and have to get cleaned on occasion. If they dont it spreads to the rest of the area and then the whole BASE gets hit with it…so yeah. That's the price.

  No argument was to be made for this. BASEowners didn't have a problem with mold, they were usually solved like a nip in the bud, but a tenant who didn't read the fine print made it problematic. @CamelotSun’s only solution was to grind the DUNGEONs in MYCENAE for BS, otherwise she'd be running chores for at least a decade.

  DUNGEONs always had the primary TUTORIAL to introduce the mechanics and fundamentals, and then each progressive DUNGEON would randomly generate mutators to stymie the difficulty in some way. If there was a guarantee, it was that monsters were never buffed, instead, the environments would be buffed to benefit both parties. Mutators could either completely screw runs, make runs significantly faster, make them extremely rewarding, or all of the above; it really just depended.

  1 PLAYER HAS ENTERED “RETWOLLER CAVE”. 3 MUTATIONS ARE ACTIVE.

  Mutations are always balanced in a sort of point system, taking and pulling the negatives to offer more positives, so on and so forth. RETWOLLER CAVE, story wise, is connected to MYCENAE and their attempts to harvest the mineral lines and use them as trade power with the empire for food. It worked for a little bit, but once the SERPENT’S CURSE became too strong to resist, their defenses turned into paper and now the PLAYERs are the only people who can keep the cave under routine maintenance. It's almost always a big event, this is where the players hit their first barrier in skill and are taught the hurdle that is BASILISK.

  Just like the SHADE, the SERPENT'S CURSE is something that plagues the NPCs on the inside, the same that the SHADE actively opposes the NPCs.

  The cave is a networking maze of tunnels and interconnecting caverns that induce claustrophobia, arachnophobia, and vertigo. Lots of small spaces, lots of detours. There's no worry of getting hungry or lost, though. There's almost always a veteran that cuts into an in progress run to set up some food posts and leave, and the minimap doesn't get taken away until the final boss, and even if there isn't a random player, outposts were made by the various NPCs that get stocked by the EARTH runners.

  Truthfully, this dungeon is just uncomfortable.

  First stage.

  It's a good teaser. Mineral veins are all over the caves, and the really rare stuff hides in the ceilings behind stalactites, encouraging players to look up and also interact with the environment. The primary enemy are corrupted goblins. They were once a real race that existed, but were later consumed by the SHADE and only exist amongst the PLAYERs as a playable species, perhaps as a way to somehow revive the goblin lineage.

  @CamelotSun begins her rotation. She pulls a lance from her inventory and gets to work.

  ALTERCATION HAS BEGUN.

  SPACEHEARTs, a hybrid class of SPACE AND HEART, have a unique advantage that they can propel themselves into any direction and manipulate the space to make any intended target be their collision point regardless of their location. This means they're one of the best classes to hybridize if one is interested in playing an assassin role or any form of burst rush down. Perfect if the player likes QTEs and timing windows.

  The goblins don't get to see what hits them, only the feeling of a lance in their backs, skewering each and every one in a backstab streak.

  @CamelotSun, or as her ALIAS would dictate, THE SPLIT OF NIGHT, is a big motorcycle fan. However, she actually has a soft spot for horses, back when she still helped run a ranch for a family of five. Nowadays, she’s stuck here, but she still puts on her snakeskin boots, her chaps, and her suspenders and rocks on rocking on.

  Second stage.

  Two different subbosses show up here: a goblin lord and an orc shaman. Also lost to time in the realm of BASILISK, they're corrupted figments of their former selves but they're a dangerous pair and one of the big learning curves of the game. The goblin lord attacks in close distance and the shaman buffs the goblin lord and debuffs the player to disrupt the rhythm of the fight.

  For @CamelotSun, this is remedied because she's practically immune to slows. Not so good against hard CC, but it makes half the fight a walk in the park. She'd seen much worse, having been a victim of several assaults in her backalley town. When she got her bicycle stolen by a bunch of hoodlums and she was taken into the police station for aggravated assault, she'd found herself much more comfortable booting up the computer.

  Every problem had a solution. It was the unspoken rule of BASILISK.

  @CamelotSun HAS COMPLETED RETWOLLER CAVE. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MUTATIONS BY CLICKING HERE.

  In real life, one would click on a hyperlink and view the mutations for themselves, but for the players, they simply have to imagine the window opening and click on it themselves, or if desiring more creativity, imagining the entire process and watching it come to life.

  Dungeon runs net on average a couple thousand BS, enough to pay for any small BASE, but hers is above the middle range and has been basically destroyed (totally not her fault). It usually depends on the dungeon too. Dungeons generally don't get “harder,” they get bigger which is to fancy the adventurous type. Dungeons could even extend to other worlds if the scenario called for it.

  Walking out of the cave soaked in a mess of goblin blood and a fragment of orc fluids, she smells like rotted baked beans and sour milk, and baking into the heat of MYCENAE's biggest problem, the sun, she's like a walking radioactive material.

  Players come in all shapes and sizes. With the only levels being from 1-100, the power dynamic varies vastly across the server. However, because the differences are so wide and changing, people have a subjective ranking of their place based on their place in the leaderboards in multiple categories…They typically use a subjectively-judged decimal to help measure people's worth in similar levels.

  @CamelotSun never paid attention to her level. She's of the same group of people who believe level has nothing to do with actual growth and statistical improvement, really just a flavor patch to stick on someone who's already addicted to nicotine. If people were interested in nurturing indomitable strength, they would already do it, and they wouldn’t need a game to tell them when they've achieved it.

  Of course, not everyone is like that. Some people find their place and stop there. Many players in the level 30.2 range become more civil members of NPC society and help take care of things on the backburner. The universe, as BASILISK wills it, tends to treat these people fairly.

  The grass always looks greener on the other side.

  Returning from the dungeon is the fun part. Every dungeon has a swath of spectators to chime in with an opinion of some kind.

  @starsetbanner: kys

  @lowkeyTRIUMPH: Why were there so many goblins? Are they retarded?

  @NASALJUICE: t 1 construction -> t 2 construction

  @NASALJUICE: rush that; i don't build until 2 minute before dungeon start

  @DivineDevil: rly? I build the energy storage beforehand; i always stall doing t 2

  @starsetbanner: spam magic missile and gravity spells, stupid easy

  @NASALJUICE: for a dirteater probably

  @starsetbanner: yeah less inputs, more op, crazy no way convenience = better????

  @lowkeyTRIUMPH: Ran the dungeon with eco debuffs. If you're losing too much energy, you have too much build power. Eat it and get the buildstuff back and just pump it into more energy.

  @starsetbanner: zzzz get better play earth

  @NASALJUICE: yeah dont talk

  A lot of backseat gamers. Most of the time, the spectators aren't spectating, they're in taverns or chatrooms talking about news events. RETWOLLER CAVE is one of the popular dungeons in MYCENAE from its reliable mutator selection and its generally fast clear time. It’s not as rewarding as its harder successors and it’s not as easy as its predecessors, putting it into this compromised intermediary position for players who aren’t sweating or want to keep themselves occupied. Thus, there’s a lot of players in the queue rooms. NPC networking happens a lot in these areas, and is also a good introductory spot for trading.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  @CamelotSun: so i i got the goblin necklaces and whatnot. Took me about an hour hour but it should be enough to craft all the stuff

  @Blue_Rogue: Yeah, I can work with it. I just need a few hours. I’ve been occupied with my sister.

  @CamelotSun: ok

  @CamelotSun: so the goblin necklaces can be…what, made into something?

  @Blue_Rogue: The necklaces contain a significant amount of nitroglycerin.

  @CamelotSun: huh

  @Blue_Rogue: We can take it out and re-use it for more important things.

  @CamelotSun: isn’t that like, in dynamite in in stuff what

  @Blue_Rogue: It’s just used in the necklaces to preserve the color of the stuff that’s on it. That’s why the teeth and bones stay white.

  @CamelotSun: gross

  @Blue_Rogue: No one likes collecting it or when they do, they mass salvage it. 20 BS for NPC sales.

  @Blue_Rogue: This should net you about…4k.

  @CamelotSun: holy

  There are many secrets in this game.

  Several weeks and partial payments later, her space was fully paid for. Luckily, these players aren't banks so they don't do interest, preferring to just spike the price if they wish. Netting bad favors is bad for business, so good sportsmanship is in the interest of the many. That, and the game rewards good behavior.

  The spark of a good player can be found within a couple of weeks. If everyone's a good player, they become bad players, and good becomes better, and the mountain continues to scale, reaching so high that perhaps heaven would have a fresh view of the peak.

  And the best becomes the worst, the worst becomes the best. Good and bad coalesce.

  @xxxpentacionexxx: have you considered fishing

  @CamelotSun: no.

  @xxxpentacionexxx: you should try it its fun

  @CamelotSun: im im good

  Her next task on the menu was finding something to eat. She was hungry, and while the caves provided some sustenance, most PLAYERs were very adamant on solving first world problems, and she was no exception. She wanted animal fries right now, and that was the truth of her psyche.

  And some part of her wanted to go back to working fast food.

  The HEART is considered the hardest class to learn. The largest skill ceiling with the smallest skill floor creates an enormous disparity of power levels across players. This is because HEART is misleading. It centralizes the core concept that the more decisions one can make, the more powerful they can become. The APM machine does not help debate this, nor does even its LUA widget system. For a majority of the game, it's good enough. Most players don't even need to hit the second learning curve to accomplish great things, barely the first to do most of the side quests.

  @BrilliantBackBreaker has already surpassed the first; control over mind. Wielding a powerful multi-barreled railgun cannon, a hallmark of EXOTIC heavy arms, he has been tasked with a special sidequest.

  To participate in a RAID consisting only of NPCs. 25 party members allowed.

  He doesn't particularly care for NPCs, they're all nobodies anyhow. He could rip them all in half (not that he wants to, it's just that he lifts more than them), and sometimes they talk way too much. He's never been a conversationalist.

  A RAID consists of approximately 100 players, split into a typical 4 groups of 25, with typically odd numbers acting as leaders. The normal RAIDs are easy enough; complete minor objectives, listen to exposition dump, complete major objectives, fight a final boss, get massive rewards. It takes several hours, and the harsher ones can take days or weeks.

  For people like him, he loves HEART-only groups. Usually groups are supposed to be all-arounders to make an equal playing force across the RAID’s collective, but sometimes the four groups will each specialize in one class to create four unified groups that harmonize into a small platoon commanded by the four leaders. It's almost poetic, whenever it works. He goes for HEART-only because he can do whatever he wants and it always puts him on the scoreboard.

  For this specifically, the maximum PLAYERs is 25.

  “Oookay, people, this raid is a pretty standard one. Show of hands of who's actually played ‘The Attack of Fauxir’s Creek?’”

  About 13 of the 25 people raise their hands. They all have unique outfits, varying from goofily assembled pieces of knight armor to fashionable punk to a classic medieval look; anyone can join these raids so they usually are very anti-thematic. Hell, @BrilliantBackBreaker is no better. He's wearing viking fur clothes and is holding a four-barrelled cannon with enough rail belts to fill up a warehouse.

  “Tips for the newbies?”

  “Uhh, don't stand on the edge if you catch the dragon’s aggro, otherwise you'll get knocked off,” A girl politely says, holding her twin daggers like her life depended on it.

  “Potions. Use potions! That's why we get them at the start!” A disgruntled and grey-skinned elf guy says, holding some kind of…Auto-loading crossbow?

  “Do not run up the walls! You will get blown up!”

  “Food!”

  Everyone simultaneously chomps into a meal pulled from their inventory, dings sounding across the murky creekland as minor EXP buffs and attack bonuses sound off. @BrilliantBackBreaker chomps into a honey mustard pretzel.

  10% STAMINA BONUS, 10% EXP BONUS. 6 HOURS.

  “Final boss has a platforming section.” This elicits many groans amidst the players.

  “Seriously…?”

  “I hate platforming…”

  “I-I think it’s cool!”

  @BrilliantBackBreaker makes it pretty clear from this point on. “Yeah, yeah, let's go and get this done with. If you die, tough luck!”

  ++++++++++++++

  THE RAID HAS ENDED. YOU HAVE OBTAINED MASSIVE REWARDS.

  Rewards are dropped primarily by chance. Sometimes, that's a good thing.

  Not so much when people believe they're the carries, but it's not as if they're fighting for anything special.

  In this world, this universe, the game operates on several fundamentals:

  Live, adapt, and succeed.

  Every class has great benefits and advantages to allow these fundamentals, and the strange hybridization of medieval and cybernetic aesthetics have lulled most players into pursuing these ideas.

  [RAID CHAT]

  @CamelotSun: yay11!!!

  @BrilliantBackBreaker: gg

  @billyfinger: gg

  @DOOZYWASTAKEN: gg!

  @Ackuafina: Need a HEALER (=V=) for your main quests? I'm offering my services! DM if need of L3 Healer!

  @1234565123456: how do i set a autoloop attack with time class I cleared it on accident when we were fighting fauxir

  Mycenae, the starting town, is almost always filled with players; it being a convenient hub and personally, @BrilliantBackBreaker's creme de la crop. Almost everything needed was here. NPCs were always available to recruit, the merchants restocked consistently, and the homeyness of the wood villas and hovels were attractive to experienced players who wanted to own a house properly rather than renting a BASE.

  @BrilliantBackBreaker was a man who appreciated hard work and effort; Mycenae's bias towards the forest home gives him the impression that he's walking around a garguantuan treehouse. The town was exactly that; a surrounding perimeter of trees nearly a hundred meters in diameter, rising to the skies of a brilliant sun. Its inner sanctums were houses, laid with clay bricks and lumber hardshapened for the gravel roads the residents walked on. The NPCs were dressed in many cottons and leathers due to the abundance of fertile land and fertile fauna.

  Several-story houses were crafted with twine. The twine, tied in tight braids, created a powerful collection of ropes using the even stronger branches of their tall oak branches, which would hang several dozens of meters high and act as a pulling force for ascending floors. @BrilliantBackBreaker was in one of these second floors.

  The PLAYERs call the houses tumblers, because of the 64oz tumblers in online stores that would narrow at the bottom and widen towards the top. The houses were just circular or square boxes housing an overall larger floor above. Most people didn't question it and assumed it was one of the quirks that the developers wanted to show off...Until @BrilliantBackBreaker made a forum post pointing at a guide.

  The guide, written by @CrustyRust, detailed that upon using her psychometry on the houses, discovered that the houses were made with religious intent; it was believed the houses, as they would ascend to the skies...

  "The houses should be bigger as they get closer to the skies, so that the gods be appeased by our desire to rebel science, they would turn their heavens inside out for us."

  The King of Mycenae, who remained nameless to this day, had left behind those words and had become the signature tradition of the people. Mycenaeans and their major town ascended upward, basking their undergrowth with darkness. This came with extensive benefits that were unforeseen.

  For the NPCs, it expanded their markets to allow mushroom and spore harvesting. @BrilliantBackBreaker saw little interest outside of the alchemical potential; everyone needed potions, after all; but beyond that, it was nothing that would fit into his play style.

  For PLAYERs, it had been horribly divided. Many loved the potential to pursue a LIMINAL build, and the best way was to dig into the unknown darkness. Some found value in utilizing the biological advantages and incorporating it into their KINETIC builds. A lot of them hated the permanent darkness and got lost often while exploring.

  But they never stopped coming back. Mycenae was simply the gathering point for players far and wide.

  @BrilliantBackBreaker was standing in one of the homes. The NPC there, a woman by the name of Carla, was baking bread in a clay oven. The thing looked as if it had been used for decades, further reminding him of how their presence has changed many things here. Though the interior was largely reminiscent of a home in the 1980s, it held many disparaging technologies. Ornate wooden chairs, a table carved with designs and etchings of various names, and a counter that spanned the entire wall with a running sink and hanging cabinets, hoisted by strings and ropes through holes in the ceiling.

  "You're fortunate to have arrived at this time, Beebee."

  That's the nickname he has the NPCs give him. He has not given a reason to why.

  "The bread is nearly finished, and we have a fresh shipment of rockspores. We only just learned recently that they can be grounded into a fine powder, and it can act as seasoning! Some of you otherworlders said it was like...Salt...I don't know what that is, but if it tastes anything like this, it must be a very effective powder."

  "Mm."

  @BrilliantBackBreaker stared at her. The NPCs are always designed and created through the algorithms of the game. She was dressed in a simple white gown and apron, and though her face and outfit was marred with dirt, the freckles and her ginger hair gave off a lucidly innocent expression that reminded him of his sister.

  He wondered how she was doing.

  "Ah, the bread should be done...One of guild members handed me a...Stopwatch! It has these symbols that mark the movement of time! It's quite amazing...Though, it was a bit odd trying to translate the symbols. Since I've figured it out, it's made my bread better more than ever! I'm never late...Your devices never cease to impress us, Beebee."

  It was a random idea in a forum post to gift the NPCs technologies that didn't fit their time period; it was said that there was a randomized wheel in which certain gifts, if delivered with the right dialogue, could serve as an alternative solution with major benefits to reward creativity.

  While this hasn't led to unforeseen consequences in his time, @BrilliantBackBreaker always gets a lingering worry.

  "The bread is ready! I hear your raid went very well. Could you tell me about it?"

  "...Sure."