St Fan
2018-07-12, 07:09 AM
To fully understand the following tale, you might want first to consult this reference document:
Warrior of Darkness (3.5 updated version) (http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/classes/prestige/evil/warriordarkness.shtml)
------------
HOW THE WARRIOR OF DARKNESS SWINDLED THE INFERNAL FORCES
A Tale of Bureaucracy
“Ahem... Coordinator Satyrica, Madam? May I speak to you for a minute?”
The erinyes looked up from the pile of parchments on her desk and peered above her reading glasses at the imp standing nervously at the entrance of her office. She raised an eyebrow, hiding her surprise that a lowly sub-devil would actually request a talk; his kind generally kept a low profile, unless directly solicited by the higher-ranking devils for whatever task at hand.
“And you are...?” she inquired, her voice neutral, letting slip neither her current boredom nor annoyance.
“Hu... Diavolus Minus, Sir, I mean Madam. Lowly paper-pusher #42, from the Archives section.”
That was doubly puzzling for Satyrica. The imps from the Archives section had one of the most boring jobs in the bureaucracy of Hell, but also one of the safest. They were mostly left to their own devices, and rarely would get the attention of any other devils. For one to solicit directly a higher-up was rather unprecedented.
“This is important, I guess?” she deadpanned. That was a rhetorical question. No way would a cowardly imp have dared coming to her if there was any risk of wasting her time.
“Yes, it is indeed, Madam.” The imp answered, holding tight on some wrinkled notes in his claws. “You see, while keeping records, I stumbled upon a very puzzling... anomaly, and I really need the opinion of a supervisor to determine the importance of the thing.”
Satyrica sighed. She dearly hopped this wasn’t something trivial the toady was worried about. But well, the current desk-job she’s been recently demoted to was rather tedious anyway. The imp at the very least could provide a welcome distraction.
“All right, I’m listening. What is it that’s so much troubling you?”
Reassured, the imp walked inside the office to get closer to the desk.
“Well, Madam, to start with the beginning, are you aware of the Warrior of Darkness program?”
“Yes, I am...” she answered with a shrug.
“What do you know exactly about it?”
Satyrica frowned. That was uncharacteristically bold coming from the imp. Although she could understand he wouldn’t want to get into details about something the interlocutor was just pretending to know about, resulting in frustration for the both of them. So, she humored him.
“It is one of several programs to lure mortals into giving allegiance to the Diabolic cause, by promising them various boons ins exchange from joining a sect that will ultimately result in the damnation of their soul...”
“You are correct, Madam. In this particular case, are you knowledgeable on the exact nature of those boons?”
Mildly annoyed, the erinyes made a dismissive gesture. “Generic power, corruption of the flesh, alchemical secrets... I don’t know the nitty-gritty details...” Realizing the opening she just left, Satyrica swore to herself that if Diavolus dared to joke that “the Devil is in the details”, she was going to rip his head off.
“Yes, that’s the latest part... the alchemical secrets, which are quite unique to this corruption path, that are the nix of the problem...”
“Would you please get to the point already?” she hissed, getting impatient.
“Oh yes, sorry, Madam. See, the anomaly I noticed is that, in the record-keeping charts of the progression of the various Warriors of Darkness having offered allegiance to us, a disproportionate number have been reaching level 3, sometimes 4, but there was no trace—”
“Diavolus,” she interrupted him, “are you not aware of General Directive #667bis, against the use of metagaming terms?”
“Oh... oh yes, Madam, I am. Except in this case... this is already hard to explain as it is, avoiding metagaming terms would just make it even more complicated... I had thought maybe we could just make an exception.”
Satyrica rubbed her brow with one hand. “Okay, okay, I guess we can do that... no mortal is listening, and if you think it’ll make things clearer...”
“I do, I do, thank you, Madam. As I was saying, recently a disproportionate number of Warriors of Darkness were on record as reaching level 3 or 4, but with no trace of them progressing any further...”
“And what’s so weird about that?” the erinyes pondered. “Those mortals may have chosen another path... or more probably just have gotten themselves killed, that can happen with all those do-gooders roaming...”
“Oh yes, that’s what I thought at first too. That wasn’t the anomaly in itself, in fact, just something that intrigued me, and prompted me to look a bit further into it. That was only afterward that I started to realize there was something wrong.”
“Which was...?” she urged him, wishing he’d be more straightforward.
“That, for at least a dozen of those alleged Warriors of Darkness never progressing beyond level 3 or 4, there was also no trace of them ever going through the rituals to gain level 1 or 2, which should have logically been on record too!”
Satyrica rolled her eyes. That was, indeed, an anomaly, but one only a nitpicking, obsessive paper-pusher would ever notice or get worried about.
“And are you certain this is not just a bookkeeping error?”
“I thought it was at first, Madam, which is why I was so distressed about it. But checking, double-checking and counterchecking the Archives, I just couldn’t pinpoint where and how it could have happened. And there was too much of a regular pattern about it to be coincidental—”
“Wait, that can be explained, right? After all, those *******s from the Abysses have their own Warrior of Darkness program, right? Which is a direct rip-off of our own, in fact. So, mortals who progressed on level 1 and 2 under their program wouldn’t be under record... and then, especially if they’d realize it wasn’t the genuine article, could have betrayed the demons and joined ours, which would explain the discrepancy.” the erinyes hypothesized.
But the imp just shook his small head. “I have considered that possibility, Madam. It could happen, indeed, but that would be a rare thing. As I was saying, it was too much of a recurring occurrence, and with a regular pattern to it. It had to be something else. It took me a long while to even understand what was going on, but then it finally dawned on me...”
“What? Are you going to tell what you’ve discovered that’s so alarming, finally?” Satyrica insisted, reaching the end of her patience.
The imp nervously licked his lips with his forked tongue. “I fear, Madam... that some mortal found a loophole in the Warrior of Darkness program to hoard boons from it without paying the price.”
That actually stopped the erinyes dead in her tracks. Eyes wide, she realized this “anomaly” the imp was ranting about could be, in the end, actually something serious. “What... what make you think such a thing could even be possible?”
“It’s the nature of the boons granted to a Warrior of Darkness, Madam. Most of them are quite the standard damning power-ups, but there is one category that stands out, even if it can seem innocuous at first: it’s the alchemical secrets.”
“What’s so special about them?”
“Nothing much at first glance, until you dig in. You see, the pattern I noticed is that every time one of those suspicious level 3 was gained, the ensuing ritual to receive a new Black Magic Elixir always involved the same request: for Violent Knowledge, but with—”
“Violent Knowledge?” Satyrica interrupted again. “That’s the bottom of the rung as far as what Black Magic Elixir can provide...”
“Yes, it is, Madam. But on the other hand, it’s the one variety that can be requested several times by the same individual...”
“But those are just a string of ‘fighter bonus’-type feats... nothing exceptional about them... why would a mortal risk damnation for something your average fighter gains regularly as bonus feats...”
“That is the point, Madam, I think. Those feats may be standard, but they can be useful and are prerequisites to plenty other more powerful feats. And the fact they are the lowest powers available make them easier to access, and less likely to attract attention to the abuse that was going on. It was really dumb luck that I even took notice...”
“What abuse, exactly? How do you believe a mortal managed to squirt around paying the price?”
“I was coming to it, Madam. This is linked to the nature of the alchemical secrets themselves — Black Magic Oil and Black Magic Elixir. You see, the actual class features granted to a Warrior of Darkness is the ability to prepare those one-use, creator-only concoctions, with the secret of the specific preparation granted to them by our services through a ritual concomitant with the recent rise in level.”
“Yeah, yeah. So?”
“The point is... the preparation of the elixir or magic oil IS the class feature. The boon granted by said oil or elixir, on the other hand, is a permanent magical effect.”
“Which is pure fluff! What difference does it make?” the erinyes interjected, now genuinely confused.
“The difference, Madam, is... you don’t need the linked Warrior of Darkness level once the elixir had been imbibed, or the oil anointed. The mortal could lose the level, and still benefit from the magical effect.”
Satyrica slumped in her chair as the fact was slowly sinking in. She still couldn’t fathom how anyone could have actually exploited this loophole to any worthwhile effect. “Are you telling me... that you think a mortal... gained levels in Warrior of Darkness... just so he or she could learn the alchemical secrets... and then tossed away those levels... and that they did it repeatedly?”
“That’s what I am fearing, yes, indeed.”
“But that’s insane!” the erinyes exploded. “How would they lose these levels in the first place? Would they keep a pet wight at hand to get regularly bitten by it? The actual repeated loss of experience points would make the entire process worthless!”
“That is... a possibility, yes, but not the one I think was exploited here. There are, in fact, other ways to eliminate a level...”
“What? How?”
“Well, I’ve been looking into it... the loss of a familiar, for example, can result in a reduction in level, but with a lesser XP loss than an actual level drain... although I doubt regularly sacrificing a familiar and then gaining a new one was the method actually used...”
“Then what?”
“More likely, I think, would be the exploitation of a character-rebuilding place...”
“A what now?” Satyrica’s vocabulary was starting to fail her.
“There exist some rare, magical places that mortals can find, and proceed to change their inner self in there. Among other things, it can result in limited switching around of class levels. Usually, such a place is visited maybe once in a lifetime... but most wouldn’t have anything specifically preventing a mortal to come there again and again...”
“... you really think that’s what happened?”
Diavolus nodded. “I can’t know for sure. There may be a simpler method that eluded me. But the pattern I recollected from our archive seems to strongly point out toward such a process...”
“What is this pattern, exactly?” the supervisor demanded, now just as involved in solving this mystery as the lowly imp.
“Well, once I sorted the happenstances chronologically, it became quite obvious: every few months or so, a Warrior of Darkness — whose identity, race, or even gender would vary, but other than that fit the other clues — would reach level 3 or 4 and request an alchemical secret through the ritual. The level 4 gains were just a few and mostly at the beginning; afterward, it’s level 3 exclusively. Each time, the type of elixir requested would be the same — Violent Knowledge — except the actual feat it would grant is always different, from the most useful first to some less appealing feats. I do believe the identities provided were fake, and that this is all the doing of one single individual...”
“Wait, wait... fake identities? Don’t the rituals involve some, I don’t know, truenaming security or the like?”
“Unfortunately not, Madam. The part requesting identification is pretty much solely for bookkeeping. Nobody ever envisaged till now that someone could exploit the system like that.”
“That’s marvelous!” she cringed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re telling me anybody can pretend being a Warrior of Darkness and trick the ritualistic system call?”
“Oh no, no, the belonging to the sect part cannot be faked. The individual needs to have gone through the full rituals to enter the prestige class, and then reached level 2 and 3 the normal way. But afterward, the ritual only checks the presence of these levels, and if the boon was already granted or not.”
“Wait, what about the last part? How can this be bypassed?”
“Well, that was the most puzzling aspect. I scratched my head for a while, but then I understood: the ritualistic system can only detect if you’ve gained or not the level already. Hence, one can’t take the ritual twice at the same level for the same boon.”
“But again, our little genius seems to have found a way around that...” Satyrica said, half-serious. She was starting to get impressed by whoever jumped through so many loops to swindle the devils themselves.
“True, alas. I only finally got it when I noticed that the character level for each level 3 prestige class gain was different...”
“Character level? What does it have to do with anything, now?”
“Simple: if the subject were to lose a level 3 of Warrior of Darkness, then regain it immediately afterward, the system would ‘ping’ it at the same level as before, and thus refuses the boon. However, if the subject gains a level in another class in-between, rising in character level by doing so, before gaining again a level 3 of Warrior of Darkness, then it would be considered a different level, and a new boon becomes accessible...”
Satyrica removed her glassed to rub her eyelids vigorously. “It is unbelievable that a mortal could go through all the trouble for just a few more feats...”
“Well... not just a few feats, Madam. As I mentioned, by the time I finally figured it out, there was a dozen of such suspicious level gains on record. Plus the initial rise from level 1-3, which would have obligatorily gone under the radar, that’s at least thirteen feats gained through a Violent Knowledge elixir between level 8 (the minimum possible) and level 20...”
“Thirteen?” she parroted in disbelief.
“To which you can certainly add the two other feats available through Black Magic Oil... that’s fifteen feats in total, plus a couple other magic boons if those early rises to level 4 are any indication.”
“Fifteen!? That’s more than a fighter can gain as bonuses over 20 levels... that’s... that’s at least doubling the number of feats of even a minmaxed character!”
“Precisely. Sure, those feats would be supernatural in nature, unlike normally-gained ones, meaning they’d go away in an anti-magic zone... but I am ready to bet they’d still be considered worth it.” the imp added.
“This is a catastrophe...” Satyrica mumbled to herself, no longer quite listening to Diavolus.
“And the worst part is, alongside those boons, the suspect have risen in whatever other classes and prestige classes they wished... probably rebuilding even the first two levels of Warrior of Darkness once they deem having finished exploiting the system... thus entirely freeing their soul of corruption and direct risk of damnation...”
“WE MUST FIND THIS GUY!” the erinyes exploded. “If... if the word ever spread out of how he swindled us... if this method ever get widely known... we could be swamped by unfaithful Warrior of Darkness pretenders only in it for the free feats!”
“That... might not be that easy, Madam.” Diavolus uncomfortably countered. “If they planned this from the beginning... then the identity for taking the first two levels was probably faked too, even if we could identify it among the genuine Warriors of Darkness. And if my hunch is correct, they no longer would have any level in the class. Not to mention they would probably be epic level now by my calculations...”
The erinyes groaned in exasperation. Why did it have to happen on her shift? What was she supposed to do now to deal with this mess? Warn some higher-up?
She mentally crushed the latest idea vigorously. “Have you told anyone else about this?” she suddenly asked the imp.
Diavolus almost teleported in fright right this instant. Those words were not something he wanted to hear coming from a supervisor. “I... I... not currently, no, I wanted to make sure first, but I can do a more detailed report if you wish...”
“NO! This must stay a secret... between you and me for the time being! You must make sure none of this — none of your notes or your conclusions — are ever seen or heard by anyone, whether your fellow imps or any higher-ups, understood?”
“But... we’ll never be able to close the loophole in the ritualistic system without help...” the scared underling protested.
“That’s not the priority right now! I must find whoever got this bright idea and deal with them before they’d spread the word to other adventurers. We must stop this leak at the source, and then we’ll worry about someone else being slick enough to reproduce it!”
Diavolus sighed. “At least for now, only evil adventurers can take advantage of the system. The class isn’t accessible to anyone else...”
“Yeah, sure, what a great reprieve this is...” Satyrica snarked. “All it means is that those wretched Celestials are spared having to deal with that kind of ****...”
“Although... now that I think of it...” the imp pursued distractedly, “... isn’t there a holy class that’s a sort of good counterpart to the Warrior of Darkness? The... Anointed Knight or something...”
“Oh? If that’s so, you have to wonder if it can be exploited the same way...” the erinyes concurred.
-------------
Somewhere in the Heavens, a planetar looked up from his desk to peer at the lantern archon soliciting an interview.
“Pardon me, sir... can we have a talk? This is kinda important...” the bright ball of light said.
END
Warrior of Darkness (3.5 updated version) (http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/classes/prestige/evil/warriordarkness.shtml)
------------
HOW THE WARRIOR OF DARKNESS SWINDLED THE INFERNAL FORCES
A Tale of Bureaucracy
“Ahem... Coordinator Satyrica, Madam? May I speak to you for a minute?”
The erinyes looked up from the pile of parchments on her desk and peered above her reading glasses at the imp standing nervously at the entrance of her office. She raised an eyebrow, hiding her surprise that a lowly sub-devil would actually request a talk; his kind generally kept a low profile, unless directly solicited by the higher-ranking devils for whatever task at hand.
“And you are...?” she inquired, her voice neutral, letting slip neither her current boredom nor annoyance.
“Hu... Diavolus Minus, Sir, I mean Madam. Lowly paper-pusher #42, from the Archives section.”
That was doubly puzzling for Satyrica. The imps from the Archives section had one of the most boring jobs in the bureaucracy of Hell, but also one of the safest. They were mostly left to their own devices, and rarely would get the attention of any other devils. For one to solicit directly a higher-up was rather unprecedented.
“This is important, I guess?” she deadpanned. That was a rhetorical question. No way would a cowardly imp have dared coming to her if there was any risk of wasting her time.
“Yes, it is indeed, Madam.” The imp answered, holding tight on some wrinkled notes in his claws. “You see, while keeping records, I stumbled upon a very puzzling... anomaly, and I really need the opinion of a supervisor to determine the importance of the thing.”
Satyrica sighed. She dearly hopped this wasn’t something trivial the toady was worried about. But well, the current desk-job she’s been recently demoted to was rather tedious anyway. The imp at the very least could provide a welcome distraction.
“All right, I’m listening. What is it that’s so much troubling you?”
Reassured, the imp walked inside the office to get closer to the desk.
“Well, Madam, to start with the beginning, are you aware of the Warrior of Darkness program?”
“Yes, I am...” she answered with a shrug.
“What do you know exactly about it?”
Satyrica frowned. That was uncharacteristically bold coming from the imp. Although she could understand he wouldn’t want to get into details about something the interlocutor was just pretending to know about, resulting in frustration for the both of them. So, she humored him.
“It is one of several programs to lure mortals into giving allegiance to the Diabolic cause, by promising them various boons ins exchange from joining a sect that will ultimately result in the damnation of their soul...”
“You are correct, Madam. In this particular case, are you knowledgeable on the exact nature of those boons?”
Mildly annoyed, the erinyes made a dismissive gesture. “Generic power, corruption of the flesh, alchemical secrets... I don’t know the nitty-gritty details...” Realizing the opening she just left, Satyrica swore to herself that if Diavolus dared to joke that “the Devil is in the details”, she was going to rip his head off.
“Yes, that’s the latest part... the alchemical secrets, which are quite unique to this corruption path, that are the nix of the problem...”
“Would you please get to the point already?” she hissed, getting impatient.
“Oh yes, sorry, Madam. See, the anomaly I noticed is that, in the record-keeping charts of the progression of the various Warriors of Darkness having offered allegiance to us, a disproportionate number have been reaching level 3, sometimes 4, but there was no trace—”
“Diavolus,” she interrupted him, “are you not aware of General Directive #667bis, against the use of metagaming terms?”
“Oh... oh yes, Madam, I am. Except in this case... this is already hard to explain as it is, avoiding metagaming terms would just make it even more complicated... I had thought maybe we could just make an exception.”
Satyrica rubbed her brow with one hand. “Okay, okay, I guess we can do that... no mortal is listening, and if you think it’ll make things clearer...”
“I do, I do, thank you, Madam. As I was saying, recently a disproportionate number of Warriors of Darkness were on record as reaching level 3 or 4, but with no trace of them progressing any further...”
“And what’s so weird about that?” the erinyes pondered. “Those mortals may have chosen another path... or more probably just have gotten themselves killed, that can happen with all those do-gooders roaming...”
“Oh yes, that’s what I thought at first too. That wasn’t the anomaly in itself, in fact, just something that intrigued me, and prompted me to look a bit further into it. That was only afterward that I started to realize there was something wrong.”
“Which was...?” she urged him, wishing he’d be more straightforward.
“That, for at least a dozen of those alleged Warriors of Darkness never progressing beyond level 3 or 4, there was also no trace of them ever going through the rituals to gain level 1 or 2, which should have logically been on record too!”
Satyrica rolled her eyes. That was, indeed, an anomaly, but one only a nitpicking, obsessive paper-pusher would ever notice or get worried about.
“And are you certain this is not just a bookkeeping error?”
“I thought it was at first, Madam, which is why I was so distressed about it. But checking, double-checking and counterchecking the Archives, I just couldn’t pinpoint where and how it could have happened. And there was too much of a regular pattern about it to be coincidental—”
“Wait, that can be explained, right? After all, those *******s from the Abysses have their own Warrior of Darkness program, right? Which is a direct rip-off of our own, in fact. So, mortals who progressed on level 1 and 2 under their program wouldn’t be under record... and then, especially if they’d realize it wasn’t the genuine article, could have betrayed the demons and joined ours, which would explain the discrepancy.” the erinyes hypothesized.
But the imp just shook his small head. “I have considered that possibility, Madam. It could happen, indeed, but that would be a rare thing. As I was saying, it was too much of a recurring occurrence, and with a regular pattern to it. It had to be something else. It took me a long while to even understand what was going on, but then it finally dawned on me...”
“What? Are you going to tell what you’ve discovered that’s so alarming, finally?” Satyrica insisted, reaching the end of her patience.
The imp nervously licked his lips with his forked tongue. “I fear, Madam... that some mortal found a loophole in the Warrior of Darkness program to hoard boons from it without paying the price.”
That actually stopped the erinyes dead in her tracks. Eyes wide, she realized this “anomaly” the imp was ranting about could be, in the end, actually something serious. “What... what make you think such a thing could even be possible?”
“It’s the nature of the boons granted to a Warrior of Darkness, Madam. Most of them are quite the standard damning power-ups, but there is one category that stands out, even if it can seem innocuous at first: it’s the alchemical secrets.”
“What’s so special about them?”
“Nothing much at first glance, until you dig in. You see, the pattern I noticed is that every time one of those suspicious level 3 was gained, the ensuing ritual to receive a new Black Magic Elixir always involved the same request: for Violent Knowledge, but with—”
“Violent Knowledge?” Satyrica interrupted again. “That’s the bottom of the rung as far as what Black Magic Elixir can provide...”
“Yes, it is, Madam. But on the other hand, it’s the one variety that can be requested several times by the same individual...”
“But those are just a string of ‘fighter bonus’-type feats... nothing exceptional about them... why would a mortal risk damnation for something your average fighter gains regularly as bonus feats...”
“That is the point, Madam, I think. Those feats may be standard, but they can be useful and are prerequisites to plenty other more powerful feats. And the fact they are the lowest powers available make them easier to access, and less likely to attract attention to the abuse that was going on. It was really dumb luck that I even took notice...”
“What abuse, exactly? How do you believe a mortal managed to squirt around paying the price?”
“I was coming to it, Madam. This is linked to the nature of the alchemical secrets themselves — Black Magic Oil and Black Magic Elixir. You see, the actual class features granted to a Warrior of Darkness is the ability to prepare those one-use, creator-only concoctions, with the secret of the specific preparation granted to them by our services through a ritual concomitant with the recent rise in level.”
“Yeah, yeah. So?”
“The point is... the preparation of the elixir or magic oil IS the class feature. The boon granted by said oil or elixir, on the other hand, is a permanent magical effect.”
“Which is pure fluff! What difference does it make?” the erinyes interjected, now genuinely confused.
“The difference, Madam, is... you don’t need the linked Warrior of Darkness level once the elixir had been imbibed, or the oil anointed. The mortal could lose the level, and still benefit from the magical effect.”
Satyrica slumped in her chair as the fact was slowly sinking in. She still couldn’t fathom how anyone could have actually exploited this loophole to any worthwhile effect. “Are you telling me... that you think a mortal... gained levels in Warrior of Darkness... just so he or she could learn the alchemical secrets... and then tossed away those levels... and that they did it repeatedly?”
“That’s what I am fearing, yes, indeed.”
“But that’s insane!” the erinyes exploded. “How would they lose these levels in the first place? Would they keep a pet wight at hand to get regularly bitten by it? The actual repeated loss of experience points would make the entire process worthless!”
“That is... a possibility, yes, but not the one I think was exploited here. There are, in fact, other ways to eliminate a level...”
“What? How?”
“Well, I’ve been looking into it... the loss of a familiar, for example, can result in a reduction in level, but with a lesser XP loss than an actual level drain... although I doubt regularly sacrificing a familiar and then gaining a new one was the method actually used...”
“Then what?”
“More likely, I think, would be the exploitation of a character-rebuilding place...”
“A what now?” Satyrica’s vocabulary was starting to fail her.
“There exist some rare, magical places that mortals can find, and proceed to change their inner self in there. Among other things, it can result in limited switching around of class levels. Usually, such a place is visited maybe once in a lifetime... but most wouldn’t have anything specifically preventing a mortal to come there again and again...”
“... you really think that’s what happened?”
Diavolus nodded. “I can’t know for sure. There may be a simpler method that eluded me. But the pattern I recollected from our archive seems to strongly point out toward such a process...”
“What is this pattern, exactly?” the supervisor demanded, now just as involved in solving this mystery as the lowly imp.
“Well, once I sorted the happenstances chronologically, it became quite obvious: every few months or so, a Warrior of Darkness — whose identity, race, or even gender would vary, but other than that fit the other clues — would reach level 3 or 4 and request an alchemical secret through the ritual. The level 4 gains were just a few and mostly at the beginning; afterward, it’s level 3 exclusively. Each time, the type of elixir requested would be the same — Violent Knowledge — except the actual feat it would grant is always different, from the most useful first to some less appealing feats. I do believe the identities provided were fake, and that this is all the doing of one single individual...”
“Wait, wait... fake identities? Don’t the rituals involve some, I don’t know, truenaming security or the like?”
“Unfortunately not, Madam. The part requesting identification is pretty much solely for bookkeeping. Nobody ever envisaged till now that someone could exploit the system like that.”
“That’s marvelous!” she cringed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re telling me anybody can pretend being a Warrior of Darkness and trick the ritualistic system call?”
“Oh no, no, the belonging to the sect part cannot be faked. The individual needs to have gone through the full rituals to enter the prestige class, and then reached level 2 and 3 the normal way. But afterward, the ritual only checks the presence of these levels, and if the boon was already granted or not.”
“Wait, what about the last part? How can this be bypassed?”
“Well, that was the most puzzling aspect. I scratched my head for a while, but then I understood: the ritualistic system can only detect if you’ve gained or not the level already. Hence, one can’t take the ritual twice at the same level for the same boon.”
“But again, our little genius seems to have found a way around that...” Satyrica said, half-serious. She was starting to get impressed by whoever jumped through so many loops to swindle the devils themselves.
“True, alas. I only finally got it when I noticed that the character level for each level 3 prestige class gain was different...”
“Character level? What does it have to do with anything, now?”
“Simple: if the subject were to lose a level 3 of Warrior of Darkness, then regain it immediately afterward, the system would ‘ping’ it at the same level as before, and thus refuses the boon. However, if the subject gains a level in another class in-between, rising in character level by doing so, before gaining again a level 3 of Warrior of Darkness, then it would be considered a different level, and a new boon becomes accessible...”
Satyrica removed her glassed to rub her eyelids vigorously. “It is unbelievable that a mortal could go through all the trouble for just a few more feats...”
“Well... not just a few feats, Madam. As I mentioned, by the time I finally figured it out, there was a dozen of such suspicious level gains on record. Plus the initial rise from level 1-3, which would have obligatorily gone under the radar, that’s at least thirteen feats gained through a Violent Knowledge elixir between level 8 (the minimum possible) and level 20...”
“Thirteen?” she parroted in disbelief.
“To which you can certainly add the two other feats available through Black Magic Oil... that’s fifteen feats in total, plus a couple other magic boons if those early rises to level 4 are any indication.”
“Fifteen!? That’s more than a fighter can gain as bonuses over 20 levels... that’s... that’s at least doubling the number of feats of even a minmaxed character!”
“Precisely. Sure, those feats would be supernatural in nature, unlike normally-gained ones, meaning they’d go away in an anti-magic zone... but I am ready to bet they’d still be considered worth it.” the imp added.
“This is a catastrophe...” Satyrica mumbled to herself, no longer quite listening to Diavolus.
“And the worst part is, alongside those boons, the suspect have risen in whatever other classes and prestige classes they wished... probably rebuilding even the first two levels of Warrior of Darkness once they deem having finished exploiting the system... thus entirely freeing their soul of corruption and direct risk of damnation...”
“WE MUST FIND THIS GUY!” the erinyes exploded. “If... if the word ever spread out of how he swindled us... if this method ever get widely known... we could be swamped by unfaithful Warrior of Darkness pretenders only in it for the free feats!”
“That... might not be that easy, Madam.” Diavolus uncomfortably countered. “If they planned this from the beginning... then the identity for taking the first two levels was probably faked too, even if we could identify it among the genuine Warriors of Darkness. And if my hunch is correct, they no longer would have any level in the class. Not to mention they would probably be epic level now by my calculations...”
The erinyes groaned in exasperation. Why did it have to happen on her shift? What was she supposed to do now to deal with this mess? Warn some higher-up?
She mentally crushed the latest idea vigorously. “Have you told anyone else about this?” she suddenly asked the imp.
Diavolus almost teleported in fright right this instant. Those words were not something he wanted to hear coming from a supervisor. “I... I... not currently, no, I wanted to make sure first, but I can do a more detailed report if you wish...”
“NO! This must stay a secret... between you and me for the time being! You must make sure none of this — none of your notes or your conclusions — are ever seen or heard by anyone, whether your fellow imps or any higher-ups, understood?”
“But... we’ll never be able to close the loophole in the ritualistic system without help...” the scared underling protested.
“That’s not the priority right now! I must find whoever got this bright idea and deal with them before they’d spread the word to other adventurers. We must stop this leak at the source, and then we’ll worry about someone else being slick enough to reproduce it!”
Diavolus sighed. “At least for now, only evil adventurers can take advantage of the system. The class isn’t accessible to anyone else...”
“Yeah, sure, what a great reprieve this is...” Satyrica snarked. “All it means is that those wretched Celestials are spared having to deal with that kind of ****...”
“Although... now that I think of it...” the imp pursued distractedly, “... isn’t there a holy class that’s a sort of good counterpart to the Warrior of Darkness? The... Anointed Knight or something...”
“Oh? If that’s so, you have to wonder if it can be exploited the same way...” the erinyes concurred.
-------------
Somewhere in the Heavens, a planetar looked up from his desk to peer at the lantern archon soliciting an interview.
“Pardon me, sir... can we have a talk? This is kinda important...” the bright ball of light said.
END