1??????????Soul Bound
1.2????????Taking Control
1.2.2??????An Awakening Epiphany
1.2.2.31???Monk-ey style
On posting to the Clan Beresford private forum about the meditation room, she discovered hers wasn’t the only new addition. Bungo had come up with a system of corridors to link rooms together, whose walls could be decorated with pictures and graffiti. Tomsk’s fanclub had created some Roman Baths. Bulgaria had gone ahead with his performance stage idea, though to his dismay it was being used for spellsinger karaoke more often than Shakespearean plays. Wellington was beta testing different variants of conference rooms for inter-clan negotiations. Only Alderney had been too busy. Kafana felt briefly guilty about that, but then firmly stomped on the notion - Alderney was doing what Alderney had freely chosen to do, and the main thing Alderney couldn’t stand was boredom.
She checked the status boards in her bier. The vessels had left the library and were busy crafting. Vessel-Alderney had designed a webbing body harness that Vessel-Kafana could use to wear her gems against her skin under her clothing without compromising her hands. Vessel-Kafana was still glowing brightly from the Imprimatur of the Deities. She had a design for a lantern of poison detection that she wanted to make for Columbina. Vessel-Wellington had the most difficult task. He’d been given the task of copying onto Nothung a version of Nafaro’s mana storage pattern that had been upgraded by Johannes. Finally, Vessel-Bungo had been passed a whole load of knowledge about metallurgy by Spirit-Bungo, thanks to Kafana’s mind gem, and he would be working with Rudolfo on crafting armour for Kalos'' Egg.
Hmm, that was going to keep them busy for a good while. No dropping in on them early. She’d just have to trust everything had been arranged with Vittoria the way she’d asked.
She checked her financials board. Wellington and Bulgaria had hashed out a financial strategy they could both live with, resulting in Melchior refusing the offer from the Chinese catering company that had wanted a 5-year exclusive licence to sell ‘Kafana-brand’ gelato. Instead, he was investigating twining underfunded arlife orphanages with organic food cooperatives based in nearby cities, seeing whether the orphans could do anything useful for the collective over telepresence, and whether part of the profits could be earmarked not just for their food and shelter, but also for skill training and education.
Under the entry for in-game investments was a link to the forums, which she followed, producing a temporary viewing screen as before.
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: Renewal
From: Wellington
I''ve set in motion the formation of the construction company, so we can set up bank accounts and start locking in contracts with suppliers of building materials since the moment a big building project gets announced, the prices will rise. We''re also going to want them to scale up their deliveries, and that may have a considerable lead-in time.
Meanwhile I''ve got Kafana''s craftsmen drawing up plans for the different building types, fully furnished, and generating a bill of the materials needed for each. We should construct a warehouse as soon as possible, so there is somewhere to deliver to that''s under our control and near the construction site. We could rent space, but pilferage and sabotage are significant threats. In the meantime, I''ve asked Vittoria to have the Basso District Irregulars keep an eye out for possible temporary solutions.
Other than that, we''re waiting on Emmanuelle to finish securing rights and Lady Trinci to make her move on the political front. I''ve set up a private clan to work with Alderney on the "Sim Torello" aspect, and have invited a number of friends in with appropriate skills.
Bulgaria, do you have any contacts in arlife micro-demographics or city planning, who might be willing to lend a hand with the wider project? Preferably cynical ones with first-hand experience of where people with big ideas have screwed up in the past. I''m not impressed by the track record of current expert system databases in this area. I suspect the people collecting the data have had an interest in suppressing complaints and glossing over problems.
Talking of which, Bungo has volunteered to coordinate the generation of a demographic and psychological profile of the groups in the affected parts of Basso. Getting normal citizens to admit to anything they fear might get back to the nobles is going to be challenging. Any chance of getting a hold of this Raggedy Man character?
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: Renewal
From: Alderney
Leave the Raggedy Man to me. I have contacts.
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Forum: Lobby
Subject: What do they want?
From: Bungo
Hey Folks,
We Wombles like helping others, but sometimes what you think will help someone isn''t actually what they need or even want.
Please help us avoid making that mistake. Here''s a survey form, an interactive map showing which bits of Basso have been surveyed so far, and a place to submit your results. An in-game volleyball to the group that helps the most!
: files/surveys/Basso/HOWTO_Administer_the_questionnaire
: files/surveys/Basso
: projects/survey/map
: services/clearing/survey_data/
Note: Please read the ''HOWTO'' - it is important!
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Kafana felt herself relax. That was everything checked that she ought to check. From now on, she could read whatever she wanted, without guilt.
Kafana: “Bedroom, notify me 15 minutes before I need to enter the game.”
Bedroom: “Yes, Kafana.”
Kafana: “Bilah, how’s the Burrow doing?”
Bilah: “The Burrow’s services are proving popular with players from Morob trying to decide whether to change world and which area to go to, thanks to the analysis by 221bBakerStreet and other denizens of Alderney’s Workshop forum.”
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: Recruits
From: Wellington
We''re up to 1280 members of the Burrow, though an unknown number more than that are making use of our services via third party applications, which is fine. Of those, 25 are highly active and contributing code, writing to multiple threads or helping organise things. A further 100 have posted at least once. The rest are content for now to watch, read and use the services.
From pattern recognition, I''d estimate that 3/4 of our current members are gamers, and over half are Soul Bound players from Torello.
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Bilah: “I’d recommend developing additional services useful to non-guild Morob players, such as advice on which skills and items to bring over. There are more than 25 million players of Soul Bound, and if we can get even 2% of them to use the Burrow, that would be a big increase.”
Kafana: “Good idea. Please pass it onto Alderney and Wellington. What are Bungo’s monks up to?”
Bilah: “Bungo’s posted an update. There’s a long discussion of it that doesn’t get anywhere but I’ll show you the start.”
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: Monk-ey style
From: Bungo
I picked up some stat boosting pills from the loot list, but in Divine Mountain, you had to go through the 12 stages of Qi cultivation before you could use them, or you died in spectacularly nasty ways.
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Adaptability of the Starving Rat</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Blood of the Red Phoenix</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Senses of the Sanguine Rabbit</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Harmony of the Hunting Snake</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Skin of the Black Tortoise</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Meridians of the Choleric Bull</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Tenacity of the Hoarding Dog</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Bones of the Blue Dragon</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Dantians of the Phlegmatic Horse</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Sacrifice of the Fattened Pig</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Guts of the White Tiger</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400">Mana of the Melancholic Monkey</li>
</ol>
Any suggestions on how those will translate to the Sacred Blood release, or what I need to do for the monks so they can take the pills safely? Does Covob even have tribulations?
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
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Kafana: “I’m tempted to find a video of people playing on Divine Mountain, just to see if it matches my imagination. Still, I have an idea.”
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: Monk-ey style
From: Kafana
If you could find players who reached different stages of cultivation before they transferred over from Morob, we could use our Combined Senses group skill to look at them, and see if we can learn to identify cultivation stage.
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Kafana: “Did Alderney post a discussion about good guys versus bad guys?”
Bilah: “Not yet, Bhabhiji.”
Kafana: “Oh well, I guess I’ll do it then. I’m curious.”
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Forum: Observatory
Subject: Good guys vs Bad guys
From: Kafana
If bad guys are willing to do anything but good guys are not, does that mean the bad guys are more effective?
I recently discussed with Alderney which would be better at working together as a group.
I started with the initial thought that when it came to voluntary cooperation with other members of their side, good guys would find it easier, because they didn''t have to fear being stabbed in the back.
Alderney''s initial thought was bad guys seem pretty effective at using greed and non-voluntary hierarchies to work as groups with other bad guys and that, in addition, they can use intimidation to hamper the good guys, by punishing the first good guys they see publicly calling for others to join in standing up against the bad guys.
What do you think?
Is there a way for good guys to organise effectively in secret, without resorting to methods which harm innocents?
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Bilah: “Would you like to see the highest rated post, or the one that’s most important for you to read?”
Kafana: “Both. The shorter first.”
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Forum: Dojo
Subject: Quid Pro Quo
From: Sentosa
Well, let''s give it a try. Here are four lairs: a hydra, basilisk, roc and an eidolon. They each have shortcuts that reduce their difficulty, and clues to what those shortcuts are. I''m particularly interested in knowing which aspects of the scenario experienced players will find interesting or off-putting.
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Kafana: “He works for XperiSense, doesn’t he? Think I should send him a message?”
Bilah: “Almost certainly. And if you want to retain your anonymity, I’d suggest leaving him to others. Here’s the important thread. I’m afraid there are quite a few replies, and they are all worth reading.”
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: A Brief Debrief
From: Tomsk
We came within a hair''s breadth of being assassinated. If we don''t look at why that happened, it will probably succeed next time.
Firstly, it caught us by surprise when it shouldn''t have. We know there are assassins at work, and we didn''t plan for the possibility. We know the nobles use guards, we had the monks available, we even had offers from Lelio to keep us protected, yet we walked fat and happy through a deserted area of the city, without weapons at the ready or even scouting ahead. We wouldn''t have done that in a forest, and the city is more dangerous.
Secondly, we''ve been relying upon Bungo and Kafana too much. We''ve not upgraded our armour since level 15, and we don''t have enough protection against non-physical attacks such as sleep, stun, poison, immobilisation traps, fire, paralysis and many others. Mind control is just one of the approaches an assassin could have used.
Thirdly, Bulgaria said Fra Gamal had been too careless showing the troll boss what they could do against lesser trolls. Well, human assassins are more intelligent than trolls, and we''ve been freely displaying everything we can do. We''ve even been broadcasting all our capabilities to other adventurers, and it wouldn''t take much gumption for an enemy to get an adventurer drunk and then ask them about us.
Fourthly, it isn''t just assassins and player killers. Ruffiana warned us that Gideon the Pirate and even Bel may have us in their sights. Then there are vampires, criminal and political factions. We might even face danger from merchant families counting on an alliance being formed between Lelio and Isabella. We should expect not just physical attacks, but social, financial, legal and magical.
That said, once the combat started we didn''t do too badly. Wellington''s habit of always wearing his athame saved us, as did his quick decision to pass it onwards.
Thoughts and suggestions?
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The thread was indeed long, and she added her own thoughts too. One reply, from Bulgaria, worried her a bit, but she couldn’t put her finger on quite why.
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: A Brief Debrief
From: Bulgaria
Talking of non-physical attacks, it isn''t just our capabilities we need to be a bit warier about revealing. It is also our motives. Like in an auction, if someone can predict how you will react, they can take advantage of that. If an attacker knows that the only thing their victim is interested in is money, they can hold their most valuable item hostage for their compliance. If they don''t know which item the victim most treasures, that''s harder.
It is the same reason why the Americans did regular training of their politicians to cope with different disaster scenarios, but had the vice-president decide whether to launch the nuclear missiles rather than the president - because the value to an enemy of knowing whether the president actually would launch was so high that the risk of the information leaking was unacceptable.
If an enemy thinks we mainly care about one orphanage, it will be easy for them to decide what to threaten. If we start rumours of our involvement in lots of things, most of which we are not actually interested in, we muddy the waters. Similarly, if we find out what an enemy is up to, we shouldn''t unnecessarily let them know that we know. If they change their plans because we have warned them, we waste the advantage. Better to save it for when we can use it effectively.
Given the strength of mind magic in Covob, I''d like to see us all gain protection against it. Until then, certain things should be restricted to those who have protection and use it.
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: A Brief Debrief
From: Kafana
I''m worried about the vessels. I gained levels from quests completed by my Vessel. If a vessel dies, will that have the same effect on levels as if we die? This has implications for what sort of adventurer housing we should be building in the renewal project, as it will be mainly used by the vessels. Does it need to be like the gated courtyards in the Boemo that are easy for residents to collectively defend? In retrospect, we''ve benefitted more than we realised by being allowed to stay in the guest area of the Sanctum, rather than in rented lodgings in the city.
Long term, though, I can''t see any alternative to making sure that our Vessels are just as combat capable and ready as we are. So any plans we make about hiding capabilities or taking precautions need to fully involve them too.
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She tried browsing at random through the forums, but after discovering some fanfiction about Tomsk that she rapidly stopped reading part way through, she let Bilah guide her. There wasn’t much left that was important, though there was plenty she found interesting. One post by Alderney surprised her:
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Forum: Clan/Beresford/Private
Subject: It’s official!
From: Alderney
Thanks to Kafana, I got to meet with ooc-Cov at the launch, and I requested that we be granted beta-tester status, because of the number of glitches we have ended up being the first people to encounter.
I’ve just heard back. XperiSense have officially agreed!
It shouldn’t make any difference to our game play, but now if we encounter a bug we have a way to report it that will receive priority attention and, hopefully, a quick response. I’ve forwarded the relevant form and details to everybody’s tiara.
There’s also a way to suggest features and I’ve forwarded those details to Wellington so he can consolidate ideas from all of us before passing them on.
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She was in the middle of catching up on the MythOS project, which had provisionally selected twelve initial launch sites around the globe, when Bedroom told her there were 15 minutes to go. She’d have to ask about the limits of expert systems and what XperiSense were really up to, another day. She flipped out to go to the bathroom, before checking with her staff at the kafana then logging into the game.