Dangerous Gaming.

Runner's heroes party vs Necromancer Apprentice & his conjured escort.


When one is a Virtual Adept, even computer games can have supernatural power - especially within Caty's Hell - as Runner understood. This included travelling to hell with his mind to a lesser degree, even when his body was still in on earth.

Every win counts & brings power, every of trasure - especially magical ones - has uses, every loss brings disasters - but controlling one's mind while playing & after, also counts.

One does not know when some victorious monstrosity from a computer's world will haunt the mind or even materialize should the Hell's Lords have such a whim. But such problems are not final, it's not the end of the fight, can be recovered from & turned into a victory later - as Runner also knew. He learned to proceed cautiously & boldly, and occasionally played still.

At least such gaming is not meaningless activity, therefore not a waste of Runner's time - a thought appeared in his mind.

With his computing expertise & entropy magick, computer's random number generator was often at his side, thankfully.

Collecting junk is also more of a loss, Runner learned. It's better to choose wisely what to pick up, and not to touch anything useless or detrimential. Valuable things for sale are usually not a junk - but one has to be wary with them still.

This afternoon Runner played a 'Darkest Dungeon' computer game - while maitaining mind contact with Caty Purple & Crystal Candle.

This game could not be cheated with saving & reloading, every character's death was a loss, every insanity or item counted.

Current mission was to defeat Necromancer Apprentice - travel to his lair was fairly easy & rewarding - Runner made a point to avoid party's stress by using torches against darkness, by striking at unholy priests first as he travelled & fought on the way & by choosing shortest path to the Necromancer Apprentice as possible - as soon as he found map. The encounter with Necromancer Apprentice almost proved a disaster, however.

After a first streak of lucky critical strikes at this 'boss monster', it turned out that he conjures skeletal escort & moved into back ranks with every of his attacks.

Occultist on Runner's side proved invaluable, he could summon tentacles that pulled the Necromancer Apprentice closer to the Runner's party, within the attack range of heroic adventurers.

Vestal healed party as they were often on the death's doors.

Rogue and Mercenary dealt hits as they could, but focused too much on escort - as it turned out - then switched to focus on the 'boss'.

Finally the Necromancer Apprentice fell, when all of the party was almost-fatally damaged, very stressed (risking heart attacks from even small amount of stress & suffering from lesser insanity already) and somehow disorganized.

Mercenary turned insane from the stress, started to be too bold & masochistic as it turned out - to the point of not accepting vestal's healing even. One of a skeletal warriors finished the mercenary, then rest of skeletons were dispatched to the grave.

Very close victory, a great monster with escort slain, mission's goal completed (2 wins) and one casaulty on Runner's party side (1 loss) - still a win.

Treasures gained during mission can also be an asset for later's play & had uses for a Virtual Adept's Magicks - Runner considered.

Party's personalities twisted as well, but more in a positive way, than negative - this time. They still will need time to recover from stress, however. Meanwhile other of his personnel can be sent on adventuring.

In the town, using found gold, Runner sent some of his roster for mental & physical recovery, for treatment. He planned for upgrading facilities for recruits later as well - when he has enough of appropriate resources. Bigger roster with better recruitment procedures allows for better parties rotation between adventures & better recovery for a whole.

Upgrading skills & equipment will have to wait till he's richer - it's expensive, and he uses a policy of keeping at least 10 000 gold pieces in reserve for treatment in case a mission turns bad & party suffers mostly losses. This situation is not so rare in this game, and even a succesful escape results in a lot of stress. Meanwhile party can learn from combat & use what they find during missions.


Caty's hell advanced, gained a little of the power - and Runner received one Ruby. He offered it to Crystal Candle, she took it as opportunity & 'stole' it as a joke.

'What i can do with one Ruby?' - she asked.
'A lesser slave buy.' - Caty answered.

Crystal Candle bought one old woman, offered her freedom immediately.

Old woman decided to stay & cook for Caty's hell's forces - her name was 'Minx'.

Still a good deed & better Karma for everyone.

Minx was grateful and thanked Runner & Crystal Candle for that.

'She earned that' - 'Free people cook better and an old cook earning freedom should inspire other old as well' - Caty added.