Unveiled: Camelot Unchained Newsletter #34 - City State Entertainment View this email in your browser Share Tweet +1 Team Tidings -by Max Porter Hey folks,



Happy end of May and a great start of June to you. What a great month it’s been for progress. Camelot Unchained® is fast becoming a real game, it seems, in the sense of our movement into more gameplay-focused items. That checklist of things to get into Beta 1 is more and more within our grasp. All we need to do is keep moving forward, which we are doing at a pace that keeps getting faster and faster, especially as we continue to hire new people.



Allow me to introduce one of those new people here. Andrew Jackson (yes that’s his real name, and it’s an awesome one) has been with us a little more than four months, and it’s high time we introduced him to you all in prose (we’ve already said hello to him in a couple of streams)! Here’s his bio as it will soon appear on our website:



After serving as the 7th President of the United States, Andrew Jackson decided to pursue a career as a UI Engineer at CSE. A lifetime filled with video games, and a love for evolving front-end frameworks, such as React and React-Native, have brought him to a passion for video game UI and all the challenges that come with it. In his free time, he likes to participate in competitive team water sports, working on open source projects, and eating for the gainz. We call him AJ around the office, so as not to confuse him for either Lead Engineer Andrew or President Andrew. AJ has been working on all kinds of neat things, often very closely with JB. To learn more about how AJ fits into the team, as well as about the ramp-up process for our engineers, head down to the State of the Build section!



Here at the East Coast office of City State Entertainment®, it’s been raining for days now, almost without a break. I think we’re almost ready for those spring showers to be over! Soon, we can start having summer storms instead, as well as sunny days and all the greenery of a Virginia summer. For now, endless streams of rain!



Speaking of streaming (see that great transition there?), we have continued our weekly schedule of streams this month, bringing you the latest creative work from artists and programmers, as well as the latest updates and news. It’s always fun, and informative as ever for our Backers and fans. If you want to catch up on any missed streams, they can always be found on our Twitch and YouTube channels. For a good read of our news, as well as our weekly Top Tenish updates, check out the News section of our website, and our User Stories to check on our progress.



Of course, for a broader look at the month with some in-depth pieces, read on in this very newsletter. We have a State of the Build article from Brittany that’s packed with updates on progress and features, a Dose of Design from Ben that looks both to the past and the future of our development, an epic Artitup update with photos from Scott that covers a wide swathe of the art team’s progress by leaps and bounds, and of course the next Lore update from yours truly.



Every month, it’s a renewed pleasure to gather these pieces and edit this newsletter for your perusal, so please bear with my reminder to click the “View this email in your browser” link in the top right to view the whole thing. Read on for articles, art, updates, news, and all in all another great monthly newsletter, and please enjoy this, the thirty-third issue of Unveiled. Hot Topics

The latest topics of discussion on the forums right now include the body part health system, support solos, and a fun thread for Backers to introduce themselves with photos from real life!



Join the discussion on the forums on our website to bring your thoughts and ideas to the table! The latest topics of discussion on the forums right now include the body part health system, support solos, and a fun thread for Backers to introduce themselves with photos from real life! Thank You Wow, we are so very lucky to be blessed with such amazingly generous Backers and fans. Let’s dive into the gifts we received this month!



Thank you to Ludovic for this awesome snow cone machine. It’s really refreshing, delicious, and helpful in the struggle to stay cool as the summer months approach! Let the halls ring with thanks to Poxer, who sent us so many amazing gifts in such a short span of time! They are truly astonishing. First of all, Poxer sent us this astonishing cappuccino machine, plus awesome cups and other accoutrements to go with it. I promise these have already been put to good use, and shall certainly make for caffeinated development in the future! Thank you, Poxer! And in addition, Poxer sent us this stand and an inspirational quote from a great software visionary. It stands proud, declaiming the message for us! Big thanks are due to Seely, who sent us these astonishing handmade candles. They don’t just look gorgeous, but they smell amazing, too. Thank you, Seely, for the candles and for your incredibly kind address label, too! Look What You Did There were so many awesome submissions for this month’s fan fiction contest, a short vignette set in CU with the theme of “Sacrifice.” Thank you to everyone who participated! You’re really bringing your ideas to life in your vision of the world of Camelot Unchained. This month’s winner is Huskey, with this poignant piece: My stone fingers crack in the heat of the forge. My arm aches with each swing of my hammer, each turn of the vise. Bending my fingers is an act of strength and will, like trying to mold hardened clay.

They say the lives of Golems are tied to truth. Few understand what that means.

Years ago, in a village devastated by Vikings, I watched a young girl sneaking among the reconstruction supplies—her face smeared with dirt, her limbs slender as bare bone. She was hungry and only wanted something to eat. She crawled into a produce cart and took an apple.

But the commander was watching, too. He seized her by the arm and started dragging her toward the gaol.

She wasn’t the first child I had seen made an orphan by war, but I felt compelled to help her. Perhaps I didn’t want her to endure more needless suffering. Perhaps I was tired of destruction.

“I gave her the apple,” I said.

My words surprised him. He loosened his grip, and she bolted away. “You did?” he asked.

“It’s one apple. I didn’t see the harm.”

I knew the lie would rend my body, make me weak and brittle as the years wore on, but I could not bear to see the girl punished for her hunger.

Still, when the forge’s heat sears my earthen flesh, I grit my teeth and remember her. I rebuild our villages with her memory. I build our siege with her pain. Really moving, Huskey, well done! As first posts on the Forums go, that was a truly excellent one. :)



For our next contest, it’s time to try our hands at some fan art once more. For our next contest, it’s time to try our hands at some fan art once more. In this month's lore piece, Nuada and some companions enter The Depths™ via a mysterious entrance. As we learn that there are various strange and wondrous entrances, why don’t you come up with your own? Draw or photograph a place that looks like it could be an entrance to The Depths, and post your creation in the thread you’ll see popping up in the Fan Art section of the forums. We’ll pick a favorite and show it off in next month’s newsletter! Dose of Design -by Ben Pielstick Further down the road

Way back in the newsletter of November 2015, I wrote up an article summarizing our plans for Beta testing. A lot of our priority items from back then have been checked off, but as we still haven’t started our first phase of Beta testing yet, it’s obvious there is still some work left to be done.



Quite recently, I’ve been intensely reviewing Mark’s vision of what the player experience needs to look like in order for us to open up Beta 1 testing. I thought this would be a good time to write an update to how things are going, and what to expect by the time the start of Beta 1 rolls around.



Character creation is largely in a pretty good state already. We’ve been providing testers with a selection of races and classes to start with for some time now, including the fighter, archer, and healer for each Realm. The process of choosing stats, as well as Banes and Boons, should be getting some cleanup and improvement in the very near future, as well. We still need to round out our selection of Bane and Boon choices for all our starting races and classes, but the system for creating them is well on its way. The Banes and Boons themselves have already been designed, so at this point it is mostly just a matter of finding the time to implement and test them, and deal with any bugs we discover in the process.



On logging a newly created character into the game for the first time, we’re still on track to provide a welcoming environment on each Realm’s starter island. While we won’t be fully building out capital cities so early on, we’re still looking at as many ways as we can to build up the starter area to make it more like something out of a real game and not just a tech demo. New characters already come pre-configured with equipped items and premade skills, in addition to items placed in inventory and extra skill parts to construct more skills. This allows new players to come into the game ready to jump right into combat, or take some time to customize how their character is geared, and what skills they have, before venturing out into contested territory.



Although crafters don’t exist as a standalone class at this point, the crafting system has had a lot of work put into it. Although this will change later, the system currently allows every character to gather resources and use a Vox, which makes testing easier. Recently, we made a big step forward in crafting: All the systems are now in place to allow players to explore the world in order to find resource nodes, take raw resources from those nodes, put those resources into a Vox, use a recipe to purify them, and then make those purified resources into finished building blocks, which can then be used for building structures on a plot.



Having this full path, from spawning interactive resource nodes via the terrain mod system, to defining the recipes and commands that enable the crafting of items that can be used in the game world, is a big deal. It means we can now expand out to other items, such as armor and weapons, as well as broadening our resource selection to allow for many different types of materials, along with the recipes to use them.



Combat is also coming together, piece by piece. Since we got our post-re-abilitation animation system hooked up and working, we’ve spent a lot of time evaluating and improving the way we create and hook animations up to skills. There are still more features and improvements that will need to be made to our animation system, so the animations we will have ready for the start of Beta 1 are still only meant to be placeholders that won’t reflect the quality we want to achieve by the time the game launches. Most importantly, however, the foundation is now in place to let us keep iterating and improving on our animations as development continues. There is still a bit more work of this nature to be done on combat visual effects and sounds as well. That work is both on the system side for enabling all the necessary sources to emit sounds and particles, and on the content side to use the new tools we’ve been developing. These tools are meant to create all the initial visual and sound effects that will serve as placeholders for testing all the possible combinations of skill parts that will be available to assemble into skills at the start of Beta 1.



Each class has access, for now, to thirty or more skill parts. This includes baseline standard parts shared by all classes for the basic use of melee weapons and bows, and unique skill parts created exclusively for each class. This current list is just a starting point to let us get initial combat testing started. The list of skill parts for each class will continue to expand as time goes on, and as the capabilities of our rebuilt ability system continue to grow.



Since a big part of combat in Camelot Unchained involves siege, we’re also working on finishing up the basic tech behind deploying, controlling, and firing siege engines. To go along with that, we’re also improving our building system so that players can construct large buildings that can take damage and use the rules of physics to determine how they crumble to the ground in real time, without causing performance degradation.



There are, of course, even more features that have yet to be fully scoped and tasked out, such as player-character progression and non-player character behaviors, but as you can see, many of the large features that have been in the works for a long time, are, at this point, well on their way to readiness for the start of Beta 1 testing. This is far from the state things will be in by the time the game is ready to launch, but Beta 1 will provide a first look at where the game is going in its early steps toward becoming a full-featured playable game experience.



Whether you’re watching our weekly livestreams on Twitch or YouTube, or just catching up on our Top Ten-ish lists in our weekly updates, there is a lot more to see than we can fit into this newsletter. If you want to keep a closer eye on our ongoing development efforts and even get some of your burning questions answered, be sure to check out the rest of our development updates, which that will keep you informed until Beta 1 begins. Developer Quote “It’s been a long road, much longer than we thought it would be, but things are moving along nicely as our recent updates (since the beginning of the year) have shown.” - Mark Jacobs Artitup -by Scott Trolan The Art Team finished out this month strong, as we balanced our weekly art tasks with in-office game testing (as new tech was frequently added!). Aside from that, we’ve been known to take a quick break or two for quick shots of espresso (thanks, Poxer!) and feed our adopted Gecko, named “Ducky”.







In animation news, I need to start by giving some context. Our original animations were done quickly, in that we had a lot of animations to complete for a small team of only two animators. We made the decision to do a quick, rough pass on all of our needed assets simply to get us to a place where we could test. Since then, with our added time, we’re doing the hard part: really figuring out what needs to be done to not only support the gameplay of CU, but make it look great! The scope of this game, with a dynamic ability system, and server side physics, has made this an exciting challenge.



Last month, we really delved into Andrew’s new animation system, with new, more refined, running and jumping animations, again supported by Andrew on the code side. The additional features of this new system have been a boon for quicker setup and iteration of new assets, especially as compared to our last version.







This month, we finished a polish pass on our run cycles and various jumps. As with anything at this state of development, this is still a WIP. However, it really informed us how to successfully approach other aspects of our animation needs. As the month continued, we began working on various torch animations to test an extremely helpful feature of the new system: We can override an individual limb, in this case the left arm, so a player can hold a torch while running, jumping, etc. We’re continuing to investigate the use of this feature with more combinations, particularly with different weapons. If we can figure out how to make this work, it should cut down on our overall time to complete related animations.



Towards the second half of the month, I began working on various knockbacks so we could have assets ready when we implement the animation side of that feature. We completed animations for both a long-distance backward knockback and for directional knockbacks, which move your character in any of four directions (forward, backward, left, and right) depending on where the impulse originates. The longer knockback animation also includes an airborne loop, in case you are hit by a larger knockback and get punted into the air. The scope, so far, of those knockback animations is a good illustration of how we’re trying to not only create good looking assets, but also create a system that works with a player-built, component-based ability system, on top of server side physics. That “anything could happen” way of approaching the animation needs for CU has been both challenging and rewarding, when we finally see the system working as intended.







In terms of combat, we’re pushing forward on our newly developed melee combat animation system based on the experimental greataxe animations. Sandra has been applying those concepts to the polearm, animating new slash attacks using what we call our 4-part system of Prepare, Pre-hit, Post-hit, and Recover. Our new system looks better while remaining dynamic in order to adhere to ability and character stat influences, buffs, and debuffs. This new approach allows for a much more fluid delivery of motion vs our more segmented 7-part system. It’s also, honestly, more fun to animate with!







Jon, our digital blacksmith, has been making helmets on a grand scale. 25 helmets have been completed, and will make their way into player inventories, time allowing outside of animation needs. We really do wear multiple helmets on this project. With all of these head-covering helmets, it would be a shame not to notice all of his recent work done in making new hair types for all Realms’ male and female Humans, which will also make their way into the game, soonish. Also of note, Jon made some fantastic siege weapons for each Realm based on Michelle’s wonderful scorpion concepts, all of which are rigged (with simple rigging for testing. We’ll get into the more complicated “working” mechanics in Beta 1), imported, and will soon be in-game, firing projectiles!







Michelle has been managing many responsibilities this month. She has been learning all about the difficulties that come with concepting UI, particularly our health bars. In her spare time, she has created quick concepts for Vox Crafting UI/UX, icon design, and VFX concept support for Mike C.







Mike C. has been getting many features and stability improvements to the particle editor. His work is literally beginning to shine! Because of all the shinies and glittering gleams. :) Mike is in the fortunate (unfortunate?) position of having lots of new functionality added to the VFX editor, with a new VFX renderer. With all of that has come a steep learning curve to balance while continuing to make assets. On top of this, we continue to march along in terms of overall VFX rendering performance, so no pressure, Mike!





Dionne toils away at creating, optimizing, and enhancing various world environment assets. Her particular focus this month has been to add various things like dead branches, small bushes, stumps and logs, to make our forests feel more like a forest. Thanks to our great engine, we’ve been able to not only create dense forests, but forests with lots of small details to discover. Below, you can see Tyler testing the performance of our new world environmental assets on a large-scale island.





James K. has been working closely with Michelle and JB to develop and design UI assets for the game. If you have ever seen a live stream of the team reviewing UI concepts, you’ll know there are a lot of amazing shared ideas and suggestions to interpret, mock up, focus test, and prototype with engineering.







Till next month, catch us on our Art livestreams! State Of The Build -by Brittany Aubert It’s been a month since the Seattle team moved into an office. Making trips to Ikea and Best Buy felt a bit like moving into an apartment with college roommates. It’s awesome getting to see teammates in person every day. As expected, being in the same office has ramped up the efficiency across the entire engineering team.



Those gains have been really visible, as you can read about below. In last month’s article, I made it a little higher-level than previous months. The reception seemed to be pretty positive, so I thought I’d iterate on the format a little more. This month, I’ll be highlighting some of the bigger features, rather than focusing on each and every feature (which you can read about in our weekly updates anyway), while also touching on some of the production decisions and workflow processes that go into how these features come together. Let me know what you think in the forums!



And with that, let’s get to this month’s State of the Build.



Crafting updates: Christina has been working on the code framework for items for quite a while now. That work was laying the groundwork for crafting, a big focus this last month. Development often works like a puzzle: You have a number of pieces that need to fit together a specific way for the picture to come together. Building a solid framework is a lot like putting together the table that props up the puzzle.



A number of the pieces came together this month. Many of our IT and Alpha Backers helped us test the crafting-building loop, which is a shorthand way of describing the process of collecting resources, putting raw materials into your Vox to make a block, and then using that block on a claimed plot to construct a building. We make the joke around the office that, “It’s finally feeling like a game!”



Siege weapons: This month saw a lot of focused work on siege weapons, which build on a lot of concepts already put together. The first step was actually not working on siege weapons at all! It was updating items to work as containers. Because siege engines need to hold ammunition, items needed some new functionality. Items can now be containers, which means you can put items inside items (Yo Dawg…). This update allows us to hold ammo inside the siege engine, which is arguably important, if you want to actually shoot anything. ;)



Typically, when bringing a new feature to life it’s important to first build an MVP, or Minimum Viable Product. This is the bare minimum functionality, meaning there’s no polish, still some obvious bugs, and, in the case of gameplay, not even guaranteed to be fun. But an MVP allows us to evaluate progress. Is there enough here for us to start testing? Is our current plan for tasks still valid? Can we keep heading forward on this, or do we need to take a detour? These are valuable questions that only an MVP can answer.



Siege weapons are very close to hitting that MVP for that first phase of testing, which we’ve determined is (1) placing a siege engine, (2) interacting with it to shoot, and (3) and verifying the tech re-used from archery is still valid here. This allows us to test the new functionality built up to this point, and to bring sieges to life as soon as possible, while we continue to make them better and more like the castle killers we want them to be.



Stat data management and the inventory screens: We were super excited to bring AJ onto the team, as JB has a lot on his plate as our general UI guy and Mod Squad guru. And, as you can probably imagine, there’s a considerable amount of UI work in a game like this. JB has been an awesome resource for AJ as he’s ramped up.



This is a good time to to mention how we ramp up a new member of our programming team. When AJ first started, he fixed a handful of existing bugs, to give him visibility into the code base and get him integrated in our code submission process. Following that, we had him build out the Banes and Boons front-end in the character creation flow so he would have a chance to work with pre-existing backend architecture. Then we threw AJ over to working on the inventory screen.



The problem we faced when we started this task was that all the information from new features, such as stats, items, etc, was not easily available to the UI. That meant any code written to grab data for the UI would have been a complicated and roundabout way of doing things. Instead, JB made copious updates throughout our data flow so that the API server now knows everything about abilities, items, characters, recipes, and crafting. This makes AJ’s task of putting together a “character stats and inventory” screen (And other similar UI tasks) significantly easier, and allows him to focus his time on other features, like dragging and dropping weapons, armor pieces, and items into various slots in your inventory. Hooray, teamwork!



And the best part is that because we invested the time in doing things the right way, rather than working around a system that wasn’t ideal, all of AJ’s work can remain as a foundation for a UI styling update. Functionality stays the same, and everything just gets a fresh coat of paint.



Rendering and particle optimizations: This month, we had multiple members of our team working on particle optimizations. George continues to tackle rendering-side performance improvements, thanks in part to his previous updates using Order Independent Transparency for our particle rendering. This significantly increased performance in the actual drawing portion of our particle update, and also helped us identify other bottlenecks.



The portion Bull and Dave are working on is slightly different. Before, the client was building a lot of particle data on the fly, which was slow. Now we pre-process our data on the builder (which helps to make our client binaries), so the client can load it, and then build a read-only resource. This allows us to remove a lot of the places where we were previously looking up data and remove a lot of overhead. TL;DR: Bull and Dave got us about a 20% improvement in performance. Combine that with George’s recent changes, and we hope to see roughly a 30% net gain, dependent upon the user’s computer hardware.



Terrain code updates: As mentioned in a weekly update a while back, George spent some time updating our terrain code to make use of our threading library, which could have given us some potential optimizations. The realities of game development set in, and George was rerouted to help out with some necessary particle optimizations.



Once Brad came up for air on some building code restructuring, we had an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: get the terrain updates landed, but also ramp up another engineer in the system. Programmers tend to have an area of focus (gameplay, graphics, networking, etc.) even though they frequently look at other code outside of that focus. George and Andrew were the two programmers most familiar with the terrain code, but when both of them are heads-down on rendering and animation tasks respectively, terrain bugs have to wait their turn. This concept of secondary or tertiary engineers solves what we call “The Bus Problem”, a morbid scenario where if someone gets hit by a bus, there is another person on the team who knows how things work. So with Brad taking over wrapping up the latest terrain updates, he gains knowledge of the system, becoming another valuable resource in the area of terrain.



After lots and lots and lots of code reviews from multiple members of the team, the change went in. Rarely does anything “just work” as it’s expected to, but this was one of the unique cases where the change was painless. And as Brad would say, “If all goes to plan, you shouldn’t see any changes.” That’s because this change doesn’t add a significant amount of performance updates, but it does fix a number of existing bugs, updates the ParLL threading library to fix potential deadlocks, make the code far more maintainable for the future, and pave the way for future terrain work, like changing the landscape based on Realm control.



Seamless zone transitions: One of the sexy things Colin has been quietly working on is the seamless zone transition, which is where a character moves from one physical server to another without hitting a load screen. Much like siege engines, we identified what our MVP for seamless zone transitions needed to be, and worked toward that. The great thing was, that even as a first pass, we experienced very few, and extremely brief, load screens. That’s the second time this month we were lucky, and something “just worked” the first time!



The overall goal here is to support a large seamless world for Backers to experience. Getting this feature to work perfectly is where I expect a lot of the work to show up. We want to make sure we pass all of the necessary data from one server to another (like your character, your stats, what you have equipped, etc.) but not so much that it bogs down the system. At the same time, we need to make sure updates happen as near as possible the exact same time across both the departure and arrival server. If anything is out of sync, the experience is less smooth.



That’s all for now! Until next time, Brittany out! *mic drop* Lore Corner -by Max Porter Hey folks, welcome to another story in the Lore Corner! This month, allow me to present to you a rewritten, revamped, and refreshed version of part 2 of the epic story of the Silverhands! This sprawling chronicle was originally written by Mark Jacobs in seven parts, which were then collected into one massive Becoming™ story. Please read on for the developed version, as we call it, of this Becoming tale, which not only tells us a great adventure of the first Silverhand, but also presents some of Mark’s thoughts on The Depths™ and the beings therein. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy! The Becoming: The Silverhands Part 2

The tale of Nuada Part 2

The proud Nuada found himself forced to take any occupation that came his way, simply in order to make ends meet. Wherever he went, he asked after The Depths, seeking knowledge that might help him. At long last, while guarding a caravan on its journey to a tiny village, Nuada encountered a friendly merchant with more specific knowledge. The man was friendly, and he and Nuada spoke at length as they walked alongside the creaking wagons of the caravan. When the merchant told Nuada he had seen an entrance to The Depths, the one-armed warrior rounded on him, staring and focused. “Where?” he asked keenly.



Folding his fingers together, the merchant bobbed his hat and made an offer. “I will gladly tell you where the entrance lies, great warrior...in return for a promise.”

Nuada smiled. “What promise is that?”



“Simply that you share any spoils looted from the place. In addition, we can make another arrangement, once I have concluded my business in the village we are traveling toward. If you agree to lead a caravan to the entrance, I will enlist the aid of others in your quest. I know of a Dvergr who can craft a well-balanced sword and a set of armor worthy of such a warrior as yourself.”



Nuada’s smile turned to a frown. Something about the easy manner in which the merchant spoke made him doubt the full truth of the words. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to throw away such a chance. He found himself speaking agreement. “Well, I suppose I have little to lose. Besides, left-handed or not, there is a simple solution to betrayal.” He flexed the fingers of his remaining hand.



The merchant didn’t even flinch, and laughed pleasantly. “Indeed.”



With Nuada’s agreement to the bargain, the merchant was as good as his word. After their caravan reached the next town, he went and spoke at the local taverns, and sent out notices. In little time, the merchant had gathered a troop of mercenaries, tough-looking folk who seemed ready for just about anything.



Nuada didn’t particularly care to get to know them. He was focused on his goal. Talk was sparse as they made their way to the hidden ravine that the merchant indicated.



There, in a foul mire where mists made an eternal twilight, Nuada and the mercenaries stood before the black monolith that served as an entrance to The Depths. Standing in the shadow of the immense stone, Nuada felt a chill deeper than ice. He knew that the physical presence of the gateway was but an illusion. Passing through would take him to another place far away, to the true location of The Depths. It could be somewhere deep within this world, or even in an entirely different plane of existence.



There were even tales that the gate could transport you to another time, though Nuada gave little credence to such rumors. Bending time went far beyond any magic he’d ever heard of.



However, it would be foolish not to heed the rest of the legends. The merchant had told him the gateway was sentient, and could take on any appearance. Nuada would not rush into this; he had to be careful in seeking entrance.



A grumbling voice interrupted his thoughts. One of the mercenaries muttered from behind him, “The merchant said this gateway...can think. It can take on any appearance. Anger it, and the entrance changes form and vanishes.”



Nuada felt a rare spark of true fear within him. Before Bres, Nuada had never known the feeling. Now that he had experienced defeat, he understood fear. He didn’t like it. This wasn’t like the dungeons in the legends of his youth, whose doorway opened with a simple phrase or incantation. The Depths was a different sort of place, a vast enigma with a mind of its own.



Nuada walked up near the monolith, ignoring its cold shadow. He turned and took stock of the strange assembly the merchant had thrown together. It was comprised of several races, including some from each of the three Realms. Most of them looked young, yet who knew if they might be great fighters. What was truly important was power, always power. He noted a few bright auras among the crew, though most of them seemed newly come into their strength.



One of the most eager, a Luchorpán, pushed past Nuada to try his luck with the hidden entrance. Nuada let the short man pass, and stood against a twisted swamp tree with his arms crossed.



He watched silently as the mercenaries tried to enter The Depths, one by one. Some summoned magical entities, others chanted ancient languages, and a few ended up slamming their heads against the monolith in frustration. All any of them got to show for it were bruised heads, parched throats, and the occasional mocking laughter of summoned beings.



Nuada began to realize that there was no way to force or trick the gateway. One legend told that the key to entering The Depths was to observe the form of the entrance, decipher any clues, and mirror them. This puzzled him, for the moment.



As the last bravo gave up their futile attempts to magically the entrance, an idea dawned on Nuada. The monolith was smooth and featureless, without a scratch. It was a blank slate. The black surface of the stone suggested darkness… Smiling at his own cleverness, Nuada spoke to the grumbling crowd. “Wait for the next moonless night. Then, and only then, will I open the monolith. Rest, and prepare yourselves. I do not expect our path to be an easy one.”



The mouthiest of them scoffed at his assurances. Nevertheless, they all agreed to wait for several days.



The Gargoyle plucked at a small harp, humming a drinking song, while the Valkyrie played cards with some of the others. The Luchorpán seemed to always be in the middle of some outrageous story, so all in all the time was passed loudly and merrily by the group.



Two of the band stayed quiet, keeping mostly to themselves, and Nuada found himself drawn to them. The first was a stony-shouldered Dvergr named John BigBoote, who had an infectious good humor and a jovial air. The other was a Human woman named Nimue. Nuada sensed a great power emanating from this woman. Better that she was part of their company and not against them.



Over the few days until the next moonless night, while the others wasted time, these three began to bond and make a plan. During this brief respite, Nuada learned a lot about Nimue and John.



Nimue was considered a promising young mage, part of the inner circle of her Realm’s most prestigious school of magic, known simply as The Academy. She was not too modest to mention how she had excelled in her early training, and was aware that her physical appearance had won her the attention of several prominent folk.



Staring into the fire where the three of them sat, Nimue continued her story in her low, musical voice. “I am not ignorant of my effect on...certain people. It would have been easy, too easy, to rely on those connections. I chose differently. I want power.” She glanced up as Nuada smiled in understanding. “I want to become a tremendously powerful wielder of magic. All other activities are a distraction. I suppose I am not unlike many people my age, in a way...I am drawn to Arthur’s vision for a new world. I want to help pave the way for a better and brighter future.”



The unfamiliar smile stayed on Nuada’s lips as he watched her eyes, full of the ardor and passion of youth. She was strengthened by the same conviction and need to excel that had possessed Nuada when he was young. It was only her second stint as a mercenary, however; she had much to learn. He decided not to ask how she had ended up among this band.



John, on the other hand, was a Dvergr who enjoyed life to its fullest. He was full of wild tales about life underground. He talked endlessly about his people, his family, and the beauty, wonders, and dangers that lurked deep within the earth. John liked to drink a fair bit, and by the end of the first night, he had exhausted his small (by Dvergar standards) stockpile of liquid refreshments. He began searching for any private caches that his companions might have hidden away.



Sitting by the same campfire, the stony little man sipped at the liquor he had somehow extracted from a Gargoyle’s pack. John loved to tell improbable war stories. “You may not believe it, but that’s when my brother tossed me and I slammed into the ogre, knocking it end over end and into the sea!”



Though the Dvergr’s claims made him sound like a hero greater than any that had ever lived, even Nuada and his Brothers, the Tuatha didn’t take offense. John told all his stories story in a way that minimized his own worth, while constantly praising those who fought at his side. It showed a big heart, and Nuada found himself becoming fast friends with the little man, despite the tendency of the Tuatha to “look down” at Dvergar.



Nuada explained his plan to open the entrance to The Depths, and advised the pair to practice.



After a perfectly cloudless day, a rainstorm swept in at twilight, clouds spreading across the sky like sludge.



The time of Shadow’s Delight, with neither the broken moon nor its companion in the sky, would last nearly the whole night. When it was so dark that no one could see but the Dvergar, Nuada quietly directed his companions to stand perfectly still before the monolith. “You must clear your minds of any thoughts, and emulate, to the best of your ability, the unmoving and perfectly smooth structure of the monolith. Become blank, and you will be able to enter.”



Reluctantly, all of the mercenaries tried their best to do as Nuada told them. Most lacked the necessary mental discipline, while Nuada, Nimue, and John had the benefit of practice.



All was quiet. Even the breathing of the group seemed softer, subdued. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, little to touch. The sky was black, shrouded in the inky clouds, and not even starlight broke the endless nothing.



Finally, in the midst of the silence and the darkness, a light appeared. The mercenaries gasped in astonishment, their faces revealed wide-eyed in a crimson shimmer. The monolith now gleamed with a red light, growing brighter and brighter until it lit up the sky. Nuada blinked at the blinding glow as it focused down into a single scarlet beam, burning up into the black sky and then turning toward him.



One by one, the adventurers, now turned Delvers of The Depths, flinched as the beam touched each of them on the forehead. On some it lingered, on others it barely brushed by. When all present had been touched, the beam became pure white.



The light shifted, pulling in and pooling like bright water around the monolith. Moving like a living thing, the shimmer twisted, then spun, becoming a whirlpool of brightness that pulled at the adventurers. The vortex sucked them in with an irresistible magnetic power, far faster than they could react.



Next thing any of them knew, they were in a chamber of black stone, the same black stone of the monolith. On one wall stood a set of golden doors with strange carvings.



There was a moment of confusion, as the group sorted themselves out in this dark chamber. Nimue and Nuada both extricated themselves from the milling crowd, examining the strange stone walls.



John stepped forward to the imposing and mysterious doors, looking up in awe at the strange words and figures that appeared there. He ran a finger over the mysterious images of strange, indescribable figures, his stony fingernail clicking on the metal. He spoke in a whisper. “These images in the stone...they look as though they actually grew here, rather than carved by some skilled hand. Anyone know what these creatures are? Abominations, or something out of legend?”



All present shook their heads, even the studious Nimue.



Nuada shrugged off all remaining caution. If the old Bres could survive here, it should be nothing for the true king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He simply strode up to the immense doors and pulled one of the giant golden handles with his one hand. John jumped back in alarm.



Surprisingly, the door opened without a sound, gliding smoothly over the polished stone surface. Summoning his old confidence, Nuada called out into The Depths. “Greetings! I am here, Nuada of the Children of Danu, and I do not fear you!”



An audible gasp came from the group behind him. Nuada turned with a laugh at their surprised reaction. “Yes, it is I, Nuada. Follow me into this dark place, and I will show you the gratitude of a king. Power and glory, treasure and titles shall be yours if you but follow me.”

Nodding, the shocked mercenaries exchanged looks of amazement. Nuada’s name and deeds were well known throughout the Realms...along with his legendary wrath. It was difficult to decide whether The Depths was more dangerous.



John and Nimue winked at one another. They had suspected that their companion was more than he seemed.



Nuada raised his hand and led the way in through the entryway.





He entered the first dark cavern, a place that would one day be called the Cavern of Lost Souls. The mercenaries found themselves following a stone path, strangely well-worn, that wound down into the earth. Around them, the darkness stretched, waiting as if hungry. The light from their torches flickered and faded, unable to pierce this black. They were mere halos of firelight, a dim glow that illuminated nothing more than the torches and the hands that held them.



Even John found himself blinking, amazed that the famed underground eyesight of the Dvergar couldn’t penetrate the unnatural obscurity of this chamber. Judging by the echoes of their footfalls upon the stone floor, Nuada knew that this room was quite large.

Frustrated by his inability to see more than a hand’s breadth ahead, Nuada halted on the path and cleared his throat. “Magic users...summon light for us!”



Twitching, eyes fearful, a mage stepped forward. He pulled a ball of light into the air between his fingers, then cast it into the darkness. Their eyes watched as it faded, then disappeared, as if swallowed by some gigantic creature, invisible in the dark.



Nimue peered at Nuada in the struggling light of their torches. “I could do the same, but I do not think I would have any better success. Whatever magic is making this darkness, it is very strong here.”



“I see.” Nuada scratched his head with his one hand thoughtfully, peering uselessly at the path he could feel beneath him, but not see. The mercenaries behind him shuffled their feet. Then the Tuathan straightened. “Mages! Work together. Combine your power to create stronger light.”



Nuada listened intently. He heard the shuffling of feet, a few spoken words. Nimue murmured as she felt for the hands of a few others along the pathway. A few words of power were mumbled or chanted. Something shifted in the darkness as one person coughed.



Finally, Nuada saw something: Sparks of magic flew, shimmering as they spun from one mage to the next. He could see their heads and shoulders outlined by the sparks as they concentrated. The chanting grew, and with it, the swirl of sparks and the scent of power. Finally, a ball of yellow light swelled, lighting the crew with an outpouring of magic. Some delighted laughter from the Gargoyle and the Luchorpán as the warm mage-light spread throughout the chamber, banishing the darkness.



A vast cavern was revealed. Below the raised stone path, the floor and walls were lined with a horde of silent statues. Their numbers were too great to count, and as with the golden doors that had led here, every race of the Realms was represented, though some of these statues were twisted into horrific shapes that made a mockery of what they once were. Many unnatural, disturbing creatures that were of no race he’d ever heard of made an appearance as well. Some statues looked as if they were simply standing still, waiting to come alive. The stonework was immaculate, perfectly carved; one could almost see the weird figures breathing.



As the orb swelled to illuminate the entire chamber, Nuada’s eye was caught by the sparkle and gleam of treasure. Some of the statues were wearing extraordinarily beautiful armor and ornaments, and others carried weapons of kingly quality, weapons out of legend.



One member of the group, a young Luchorpán, could barely control his excitement. He puffed himself up in his red jerkin and peered at the glittering baubles, his eyes shifting color and glowing as he stared at the riches. Nuada put out a hand to warn him, but only brushed the Luchorpán’s bright gold breeches as the little man leapt from the raised path.



“No!” Nuada shouted. “Stop!”



Landing nimbly between two of the statues, the Luchorpán laughed merrily up at him. “I don’t need your approval, great one. Look!” He turned and carefully lifted a golden torc from the neck of a stone figure in the shape of a Valkyrie, eyes staring blankly.



And then...nothing happened. Nuada was shocked, though the rest of the mercenaries still heeded his warning and watched from above.



Snickering at their caution, the Luchorpán clicked his heels and skipped about giddily. “Come on, join me! There’s plenty for all!” He avoided looking at Nuada’s stern face as he urged them all to join the looting. Everyone watched as he loaded a bag with as many riches as he could manage. “What mighty, brave warriors you all are! Surely, your rewards will be great for such boldness.” The Luchorpán’s teeth flashed brighter than his breeches as he ambled back to the path. Still, the rest of the group watched, breathless.



The moment his feet touched the worn stone walkway, he froze, mid-stride. Everything turned grey and black, everything from the tip of his head to his toes. The Luchorpán had been turned to stone. Only the torc and other baubles he’d collected still glittered gold and silver; only the treasures had not transformed.



Some gasped. Nuada shook his head, unwilling to spend any more time or energy than was necessary. “What a waste. He was warned.” The Tuatha gestured down the path with his hand. “Forward! Down this path and out of this accursed cavern.”



As the last mercenary left the room, Nuada glanced back. A movement at the edge of his gaze had pulled his attention. However, he could no longer see the frozen little man, laden with treasures. A prickling uncertainty passed over Nuada, a sense that the statue was being carried away by some invisible entity. Although he had just witnessed a death, this place felt very much alive…



Thus ends Part 2 of the Becoming tale of the Silverhands. Bonus Images! For a bonus image from C.U.B.E., I just couldn’t let you go without showing you a stunning castle on the coast that was built by the Backer known as Swazi. These images were featured in the recent end-of-week update, but are well worth another look! It’s always the best feeling to put this monthly newsletter out there for you folks to read. Thanks for your interest and for making it all way through, and I’ll CU next month for the next issue of Unveiled!



-Max