21 - The Veil and the Arrow

I'd been living in this world for two and a half weeks and although that's quite a long time, considering that most of my time I spent solely focused on developing my game, when I needed knowledge about other areas I had to research them more thoroughly.

Even my memories of Theo living in that world were quite outdated, after all, “I” had given up on myself 3 or 4 years ago, just living as a robot with no desire for anything when “I” realized that “I” had no talent.

So after I'd finished developing today's cards for the game, in order to bring myself up to date with current knowledge, I started researching on the internet.

First of all, dungeons in this world were only portrayed as small worlds where Players could enter, kill all the monsters inside and leave quickly so as not to get stuck there.

To me, that seemed a bit strange.

I don't know if this strangeness I felt was because of the name they use here compared to the definition of dungeons in my previous world...

In role-playing games I've played, books I've read or movies I've watched that used the term Dungeons, it was always used to mean a closed structure, almost always underground, where monsters lived and protected something, or someone.

In that world they classified any kind of invasion from another world as a Dungeon.

Looking only with a superfluous eye, the description did indeed sound like a dungeon.

Portals would appear around the world destroying all the surrounding structures, Players would enter these portals, encounter lots of monsters, kill these monsters and return to the real world afterwards with rewards.

The problem was that when I started researching this in more depth, the more I realized that something wasn't adding up.

Many of these dungeons weren't even closed, with portals transporting players to open deserts, forests, or even monster villages.

Most of the time, the monsters didn't even expect to be attacked... if these monsters were invading our world as the government claimed, why wouldn't they know that the portal was open and that they could invade us?

Not to mention that goblins or the low-level monsters that Rank F humans used to train were nowhere near intelligent enough to plan something like this...

Something about this story didn't add up.

Even more so when I thought about how the government actively bought any loot the Players brought back from the dungeons, my mental alert that something was wrong kept beeping...

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything more on this subject, and considering how paranoid my previous world had made me about human governments, I didn't have the heart to continue delving into it and risk triggering an alert in someone I shouldn't have.

Returning my focus to the Supernaturals, the Player classes were based on how cultures around the world used Mana.

Warriors and Wizards were based on medieval England's way of applying Mana, which extended to the present day, using Arthur Pendragon and Merlin as examples of paths to follow.

China used a mixture of the two paths, blending magic with the use of swords to develop Cultivators.

Unlike the English paths which, despite sometimes extending life itself, there are stories that the most powerful Chinese Supernaturals have lived for millennia, with even ancient emperors thousands of years old sometimes being sighted.

The downside of this path is that while it guarantees longevity to those who practice it, users have to spend that longevity just practicing, meditating and cultivating for years on end just to climb a small realm, making the process of their evolution extremely slow, but very rewarding for those who succeed.

North America also has its own path, basing the use of Mana on dances to activate powerful totems.

This path had a great advantage in terms of the variety of powers, since each totem could have a different effect that the user could use without much knowledge or practice. The shortcoming of this path is that there is no increase in longevity like the other paths, and all the power gained is only granted because of the goodwill of natural spirits.

The same problem would occur with South America's way of using magic, since their magic is also based on worshipping spirits and using the blessings that these spirits grant.

Africa mixes a bit of each point, worshipping some spirits but using ancestry to absorb some of the power of the ancestors to become stronger or acquire powerful characteristics for battle.

Eastern Europe has an interesting path, performing sacrifices and blood rituals to absorb characteristics from powerful creatures such as Bears, Wolves or Bats, practically changing the species of the practitioners of these arts to Vampires, Werewolves or various other species, of course, also acquiring the disadvantages of these new species.

The Indians also had their own way, calling Mana 'Prana' and 'Chakra', channeling this energy into the body using different postures to achieve different effects.

There were still several other cultures with unique ways of using magic, but considering that Game Cores were only popular in the US for the time being, my focus had to remain on what was the most popular way of using magic here.

In addition to Warriors and Mages, my research showed that other sub-classes were developed based on these two.

For example, unlike European Mages who tried to become good at all aspects of magic before specializing in something.

In order to achieve notable feats more quickly, Players decided to dedicate themselves to one aspect of magic from the start, creating a differentiation between Mages and Healers.

Mages focused on learning combat spells exclusively, while Healers focused only on healing spells.

In this way, each would have a disadvantage in one area, but when they grouped together, one would cover the other's deficiencies and the group would be able to go much further than they could by dividing their attention.

Not only were Healers sub-classes of mages, but there were also illusionists, evocators, necromancers...

The same thing happened with Warriors, with sub-classes of rogues, paladins, archers...

Seeing this large number of sub-classes made me realize just how deep the Supernaturals were in this world.

'I think it would be a bit unfair to add just one sub-class of mages or warriors and leave the other with nothing new, right?' I realized.

Looking at the list of subclasses and searching for which ones were most popular, I came up with two choices for the next Runestone Heroes.

The first choice would be a Healer!

To develop a Healer hero I would use the Priest from the original Runestone as a base, only changing his gender to female, since in this world 80% of Healers are women.

Their cards would be focused on healing spells with a gameplay style focused on control and sustain, specializing in healing, removing enemy minions and manipulating the field.

Such a new style of play would certainly get players excited about facing different opponents.

Not to mention that I was getting excited to see a Healer's reaction to seeing a style of play that so closely matched how they battled in the real world being able to defeat Mages and Warriors.

'Hahaha, not only will the Healers' reaction be interesting, but seeing a Mage who thinks he's superior to Healers losing to one will be hilarious!' I started laughing just imagining it.

The other hero chosen would be the Archer!

To develop the Archer hero, I would have to use the Hunter from the original game as a base, with a more aggressive style of play focused on causing direct damage to the opponent, with less emphasis on prolonged control.

While the other classes have a greater need to clear the opponent's minions to win the game, Hunters will have cards focused on ignoring minions and dealing damage directly to the enemy hero, adding even more variety to the game.

I've noticed warriors making decks focused only on putting as many creatures as possible on the board and winning by quantity, letting Hunters deal with them will be a lot of fun.

Sure, I knew I'd have to pay close attention to how one card would interact with another so that one Hero wouldn't be much more powerful than another.

There wouldn't be a problem and a slight difference in strength, since Players would be unlikely to play with something that isn't their real-world class, since False Neurological Feedback gives bonuses based on the cards used, and each class will focus on their area of spatialization.

For example, Warriors are focused on developing brute strength and Mages are focused on maximum Mana.

Healers will focus on boosting spirit, which would intensify the power of their healing, but also be able to use spell cards that increase maximum Mana.

Hunters will be focused on cards that increase agility-related muscles, thus directing their growth towards something even better for the future.

With this specialized growth, I'm sure they won't want to switch classes constantly.

Maybe they'll try other heroes out of curiosity or fun, but most of the time they'll use their real-life class, or as close to it as possible.

Fortunately my idea and adding another hero to the new update won't cost me much more MP than I originally intended.

Heroes were just cosmetic, apart from their base skill and the unique cards they could use, nothing changed.

So I only had to develop the artwork for the two heroes and their exclusive spells.

Thinking of getting the Players even more excited, a smile appeared on my face and I opened FrostHaven's Whisper account and made a post.

[Hello Players, FrostHaven is very happy with the popularity the game is enjoying, which has caught the attention of two special individuals!

They've asked us not to announce who they are for the time being, but that it's okay to announce the titles they've earned for their heroic deeds!

Attention Players, the Veil of Redemption and the Dark Arrow are watching you with interest.

Use Ranked Matches to show your attitude and how deserving you are of this attention!]

As soon as this post on FrostHaven's profile was made, a notification was sent to each Player's Runestone, as well as the Whisper accounts of those who followed the page.

As I imagined, in just a few minutes the comments on this post were buzzing with curious and excited people

With some very interesting comments!