Normally, all game events are predetermined and included in the script — whether they affect the whole game world or just a singular location. The way I understood it, you could always get an inkling of an upcoming event if you looked deep enough into the developments that preceded it.
I opened the castle’s 3D model, highlighted the ruins which had served as the base for Enea’s shrine and began studying them.
There wasn’t a single hint at the possibility of building a temple in that particular area. No matter how hard I looked or how many times I rotated the model, the ruins looked pretty mundane. They didn’t harbor any sources of magic power or secret stashes containing powerful artifacts. There were no ancient murals or stone carvings that might suggest the place’s connection with the powers of Nature.
I stared at the weathered gray stone of the towers, the tall narrow arrowslits and the collapsed heaps of rotten beams entangled in the maze of omnipresent vines.
Apparently, location didn’t matter. In which case, could Enea in her wholehearted enthusiasm have indeed willed the ruins to transform, breathing a new form and a new meaning into them?
Also, it wasn’t just the ruins which had transformed. Enea had changed class too, receiving new levels and new abilities. It was as if virtual reality itself had faithfully responded to her earnest impulse, demonstrating remarkable compliance and adaptivity. Which, in my opinion, was in contradiction with the very nature of virtual reality.
I pondered over it some more, following this new train of thought.
No matter how much I loved Enea, no matter how happy or concerned about her successes I was, I had to look at the facts objectively. In terms of gaming logic, if what had happened today wasn’t a predetermined event (and I’d found no evidence of that whatsoever), then it could seriously disturb the world’s inner balance.
Why would the game engine allow Enea to do something so drastic?
To locate the answer, I might need to go back to the Founders’ library. All the knowledge I’d received there was still buzzing in my mind, disturbing and demanding further processing.
If the truth were known, my own class didn’t really comply with the gameplay, either. Thanks to all the intense leveling of the last two weeks and last night’s clan quest completion, I was already level 70. Two more abilities had opened in my Neuro development branch even though I hadn’t yet had the time to check them out.
A new line — Artifact Building — had added to the Secret Knowledge column while a certain Shield of Reason had added to Evolution. Both abilities sounded interesting. Let’s take a look...
Now,
Artifact Building
You’ve acquired Secret Knowledge, mastered Elemental Control, grasped Synergy and found the long-lost Object Replication spell. From now on, you can replicate artifacts. Replication type: simple (halves the artifact’s properties). Each XP point invested into the ability will improve the replicated object’s properties by 10%. That is to say, once you reach level 5 of the ability, the replicated artifacts won’t suffer any loss in their properties. Further leveling can even improve their properties but no more than +130% of the original object’s bonuses.
Restriction: The only items you can copy for the time being are those built by the ancient masters. You cannot create your own artifacts yet.
Shield of Reason
By having mastered Evolution, Power of Reason and Secret Knowledge, you’ve come to realize that each of us grows to become a unique universe best described as Ego.
The death of a human body isn’t fatal. The disintegration of one’s identity is.
You’ve spent a lot of time studying ancient scrolls which describe various methods of mind protection from any destructive external influences.
By repeatedly experimenting with the Elements within your control, you’ve managed to retrieve an ancient protection spell which prevents the enemy from controlling your mind. The protection spell has become your unique ability granting +70% to your immunity to all kinds of mind control. Each XP point invested into the ability adds +3% to the said immunity.
Once you reach level 10 of the ability, you’ll be able to cast the spell on any one chosen item of your gear.
That was impressive. These new abilities were well and truly unique. Now that our confrontation with the Reapers was about to grow into a full-blown war, they were especially handy.
This was how my development branch looked now. Once I reached level 150, I would receive three more abilities; the rest were still blocked, unfortunately, until level 200.
The Neuro Development Branch:
Secret Knowledge, 1:
Observational Skills, 1
Spell Interception, 1
Unity of Schools, 1
Acquisition of Blows and Combos, 1
Reflex Optimization, 1
Unity of Origin, 1
Legacy, 1
Artifact Building, 1
Evolution, 1:
Intense Training, 3
Pain Threshold, 5
Synergy, 5
Crit, 3
Shield of Reason, 1
Power of Reason, 1:
Insight, 1
Self-Control, 4
Enhanced Perception, 5
Energy Transfer, 1
Elemental Control, 1 (activated ahead of schedule)
That night, I sat down and took stock of everything that had happened.
The world which I already considered my home — the world where I’d finally found my true love — was about to collapse. When I’d discussed it with White earlier that day, he’d once again warned me against putting my trust in NPCs,
“Not a good idea,” he’d said. “If I were you, I should limit the number of castle staff and stop offering shelter to village refugees. You risk harboring more than you bargained for.”
You couldn’t very well argue with him. Still, I’d already formed my own opinion.
Human nature was a complex thing. Somehow I didn’t think the Reapers would exploit its brighter sides such as friendship, love or fidelity. Could they become the extra push we needed? No amount of blood oaths could compare to the noble impulses of human heart.
Some might laugh and say there are no such things left in our world. Sorry, but I beg to differ. White was a shining example. Even his uncharitable nature of a corporate shark had harbored a sliver of paternal love which had pushed him out of his comfort zone toward misery and deprivation, dooming him to a life of desperate adventure.
Still, the question of putting my trust in NPCs which made up two-thirds of the castle’s population remained open.
I looked at Enea. She was fast asleep. I tucked her in properly and gave her a kiss. Then I walked out onto the balcony and ported over to the top of the second wall ring.
As soon as the portal’s flash expired, I sensed the sharp touch of cold Elven steel at my throat.
“Arwan, relax,” I wheezed. “It’s only me.”
“Alexatis? You should have told me you were coming. I could have hurt you.”
“Yeah, right,” I chuckled. “We need to talk. Got someone to relieve you?”
He made a twittering bird call and waited. Soon two Elven figures emerged from the surrounding darkness.
Arwan and I stepped aside.
“Did you like the party?” I asked.
“Oh!” he exclaimed wholeheartedly. “What Enea did was a miracle! The Shrine of Nature has breathed life and hope back into our hearts! No one has done anything like this for millennia,” he paused and glanced at me. “But that’s not what you’ve come here for, is it?”
“Do you remember how we first met?”
I didn’t need to ask. Being enslaved in the castle dungeons isn’t something you’d forget in a hurry. Nor is your consequent liberation.
“What kind of question is that? Of course I do. Why?”
His reaction was too emotional for an NPC. Very humanlike, in fact. Any other Elf would have reacted differently to the same questio
n.
“Ever since we fought that dungeon monster — Reguar the Arch Demon, remember? — you seem to have changed. Wanna talk about it?”
His face turned pale in the weak moonlight. “How do you know? That... that’s personal. I never told anyone about it.”
“I know. This is strictly between us.”
For a while, he preserved a moody silence. Then he shrugged,
“When you pierced Reguar’s heart with your sword, a poisonous bluish haze escaped his body. It touched me — and then it just seeped under my skin. It must have been some death curse. My mind went blank for a moment. Then I felt better. For a few days, everything went fine. Then one night I had a nightmare.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Are you gonna expel me from the castle?”
I gave him a searching look. “Should I?”
He paused, working up enough courage. “I don’t know. My loyalty to Rion Castle is absolute but... I have these memories of living in another world. It’s strange and very dark. Can you imagine a city with buildings so high they pierce the sky? Its streets are like mountain canyons flooded with moving lights. Crowds of people everywhere, and they’re all in a hurry...” he fell silent, crestfallen.
“Is that all?”
“Then I started having these visions during daytime.”
“Do they urge you to do something?”
“No. They scare me. They make me cling to this world even stronger.”
“Do you feel the desire to go back to that other world?”
“Oh no! Everything I cherish is here! Tell me, is this some demonic curse? I noticed that every time the nightmare releases me, my vision and all my senses become stronger and more acute. I see ordinary things in a different light. Like a dewdrop on a blade of grass. Or forest scents. Strange thoughts come to my head. It’s as if I already lost it once — and now I’ve found it again.”
“And?”
“And it feels as if it’s my duty to preserve it. I must protect and defend it. Whatever it costs!”
I could see he was perfectly sincere. He had no idea he’d occasionally harvested several neurogram fragments that used to belong to one of the corporation workers — most likely, one of the defective mobs squad members originally killed by Dietrich. At the time, Dietrich had only craved knowledge, hoping it could give him control over cyberspace. All the snippets of memories, disturbing feelings or unpredictable urges which could affect his own actions — he fed them all to the Reguar, then closely watched him for any changes the neurograms could have had on his behavior. Basically, he experimented on him.
“So you think you’ve overcome it?” I asked Arwan. “You think you’re stronger now?”
He noticeably cheered up with my interpretation of his story. “I swore an oath — to you, Enea and Rion! And I will never betray it!”
Now I really should speak to Davre and the two Guards of Gloom. They’d been there too, as well as several other Elves.
“What about your kinsmen?” I asked.
“You mean the archers that were there with me?” Arwan asked. “One was gone the next day. We never saw him again. The others are fine. I can vouch for their loyalty.”
“Very good. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Do you think those nightmares will go?”
“They will. They’ll fade over time. As long as you stick to your convictions, you’ll be fine.”
“Thank you!”
“What for?”
“I had no one to talk to. I feel much better now.”
* * *
Our conversation made me realize one very important thing. Not every neurogram-infected NPC could become a Reaper. All those snippets of human identities acted as some kind of virus which could affect primitive mobs and NPCs while presenting the more complex ones with a challenging moral choice.
Still, White had been right in his assumptions. I needed to find Davre and all the other NPC team members who’d been with me during my fight with the Reguar.
As night fell, the party subsided a little, then resumed with a new force.
On the little island next to the freshly-restored barbican, the castle’s guest portal kept flashing non-stop, disgorging more pilgrims.
I found Davre in the central square in the company of some seedy rogue types. Not a good combination at the best of times, especially as he was already quite drunk. Talking to him now was probably not a good idea.
At least so I thought. Apparently, life had other ideas.
Before I could move, our freshly-baked assassin Ylien slipped out of the shadows and joined them by the fire.
I never liked rogues very much. Of course I knew this was only a game class but I just couldn’t help myself. I simply didn’t like thieves, period.
They greeted Ylien as one of their own — and thanks to the clan chat, I could now follow every word of their conversation.
“Alexatis doesn’t give a damn about you,” one of the thieves winced, sipping his wine. “You’re a powerful warrior, Davre. You can swat an Elf like a fly. And do they appreciate it?”
Davre preserved a sullen silence.
“No, they don’t,” another rogue joined in. “They gave the Elves a shrine — and they can’t even let you dig a small cave for yourself! They make you serve peasants!”
“That’s not true!” the orc growled.
“Isn’t it? So you don’t carry stones for them at the building site? To help them build their own houses? While you live in some hovel on the outskirts?”
“Don’t start! I swore my oath to them!”
“Exactly. That was clever of them, wasn’t it? This way you’ll have to lug around stones for them for the rest of your life. You used to slave for the imps — and now you’re slaving for them. I just can’t see the difference!”
Davre looked lost. He didn’t say anything — but I could see it had got him thinking.
“And even if you wanted to leave, you can’t,” the rogue insisted. “They’ll cast a disease or a spell on you to make sure you crawl down some hole and die there all alone.”
Ylien grinned, playing along. “So what should he do?” he asked the rogue.
“Anything’s better than being a servant to peasants! He can always join Dietrich. He has huge respect for great warriors. He can remove his oath no problem.”
“Bullshit,” Ylien snapped before Davre could reply. “I don’t think you’ve ever robbed anyone outside your own village, dude. Pull the other one.”
The thieves exchanged glances. I didn’t interfere. Ylien seemed to have the situation under control.
Highr the Kobold walked over to the group and sat by the fire.
Aha. This was another witness to the Reguar’s death.
The thieves hurried to pour him some of their own wine. They hadn’t touched the pitcher served to them by the Elves.
The Kobold, however, was known for his remarkable resistance to toxins. You had to go some to make him drunk.
By then, I had no doubt that these were Reapers disguised as rogues.
“White, Christa, I need your help,” I forwarded them the footage of what I’d just seen.
Both happened to be nearby. I didn’t want to take risks. We had to crush the intruders with stats. I didn’t want to risk lives. There were plenty of players and innocent NPCs around.
“Back me up,” I said, then headed for the fire.
On seeing me, Davre turned dark as a thundercloud. The Kobold, however, waved a greeting, inviting me to join.
Ylien cringed as if the arrival of the clan leader had ruined his game. He played his role well. The rogues would count on him, thinking he’d take their side.
“Enjoying the party?”
The rogues acted as if nothing had been said. “Aha! Here comes our great uncategorized wizard!” they sat closer, making room for me by the fire.
“What are you doing here?” I asked them sternly just to take them down a peg.
“We’re pilgrims,”
one of them hunched up, faking infirmity and revealing several debuffs next to his name. “We heard about the Shrine. We need Regeneration.”
“Fair enough. Why aren’t you in the Shrine, then?”
“We were just about to go there,” the rogues replied.
Gnarly staffs materialized in their hands. Leaning heavily on them, the two thieves scrambled to their feet and hobbled toward the Shrine of Nature.
“Liars!” Davre roared, indignant with their brazen transformation. “Alexatis, they’re turncoats! They tried to recruit me into Dietrich’s army! They pitted me against you!”
The rogues’ level counters began to spin uncontrollably as the two realized they’d been found out.
“Harvesters!” the orc and the Kobold assaulted them at once.
The gnarly staffs in the rogues’ hands transformed into lethal swords. The orc and the Kobold were killed almost instantly.
Christa joined in. No idea what spell she used. All I saw was some sort of energy sphere entrapping the two villains.
“Alex, Ylien, get the hell out of there!” White snapped.
In moments like these, your body acts on its own. Ylien and I rolled back, away from the dying fire.
Once again the festive sounds reached my ear. Christa’s sphere began shrinking until it reached the size of a soccer ball.
“Got you, you bastards!” she gasped. “They ain’t going anywhere now!”
“Are you sure?” White asked. “Is it safe enough?”
“I got this scroll from Borisov. He gave it to me in case I came across any Harvesters.”
We’d just avoided a mass slaughter. Had those two neurogram hunters managed to attain their full strength, we might have had a hard time trying to stop them.
I contacted the two Guards of Gloom. Both were posted in the Resurrection Hall.
“Have Davre and Highr respawned already?” I asked them.
“No.”
I swung to face Christa. “What happened to them?”
The Reapers (The Neuro 3) Page 15