Istoria Online- Square One

by Vic Connor

  [Plain] No, they are not.

  “No, they are not,” I say with a wink. “Variety is the spice of life, or so I’ve heard…”

  “Maar die zijn peperduur.” Van Dyk frowns.

  De Grout frowns, too. “Wars waged and good comrades lost. That’s the sort of variety spices command.”

  From the corner of my eye, I notice the Noh mask tilting slightly forward and Abe’s shoulders tensing.

  And I’m a moron. Yes. Not only no one appreciated my joke—admittedly, made in poor taste—but spices were so expensive in these times that whole wars were waged to secure them.

  [Threatening] Be as it may, the ladies are none of your business.

  [Easygoing] Come on, friends, it was just a silly joke.

  [Appeasing] My apologies, I meant no disrespect.

  Let’s backtrack as fast as we can.

  “My apologies,” I say with a stiff bow. “I meant no disrespect.”

  De Groot’s frown holds for a second, then he nods. “A little politeness gets you far through all the lands, or so I have heard myself. Let us start with the right foot, shall we?”

  That would be fine by me.

  As long as you remain polite to my female companions.

  We didn’t mean to bother you; we’ll be going now.

  “That would be fine by me,” I say. “As I said, we’re looking to cause you no trouble.”

  “Fine by me, too,” De Groot agrees. “What are you looking for in Duurstad, then?”

  A map.

  Some work.

  An inn and a tavern.

  Nothing in particular; just finding out what opportunities your fine town offers.

  We didn’t mean to bother you; we’ll be going now.

  Let’s stick to our story, then… “Some work.” I nod toward my companions. “We’ve heard there may be employment here for those who know how to wield their weapons.”

  “Or schoot ye weapens,” says Hendricks, looking again at the pistols holstered in my left crutch. “And maake ye weapens, ja?”

  I smile. “Keen eyes, my friend.”

  “Our Hendricks here appreciates a good pistol,” De Groot tells me. “Or the person who crafts and shoots them.” He adds something under his breath; Hendricks steps aside to the left, while the other three move to the right. De Groot gestures toward the right side of town where we can see the only building other than the Opzichter’s tower tall enough to stand over the roofs of the surrounding shacks, sheds and huts. “In that stone tower you see there, you should find the Compagnie hiring offices. Folks familiar with sword should find plenty of occupation there.”

  “En een biertje!” Van Dyk laughs.

  “Ja.” De Groot nods. “If your throat is dry and your purse full, Gertrude at the ‘Lachende Dame’ will wet one and make the other light.”

  “Lachende Dame?” I ask.

  Like the finest crystals being shattered, Miyu’s giggle floats from beneath her mask.

  Startled, Van Dyk, Brouweer, Mueller, and Hendricks all turn to stare at our samurai, but De Groot smiles. “That is correct, my lady,” he says. “That’s the tavern’s name: the laughing lady.” He steps aside, too, clearing the way for us to enter Duurstad. “Mind your manners and stay polite while in our town, and all shall be well.” He glances at Juanita’s staff. “And it would be wise to avoid displays of pagan magicks near the Church. I do not doubt of your powers, my lady, for I have witnessed the deeds of pagan priests with my own eyes. But some may find such magicks deeply offensive, if wielded so close to our Lord’s House.”

  “My thanks for your advice,” Juanita says appreciatively. “We shall be careful to heed it.”

  I slog forward into town. The dirt road is so uneven that it’s harder to move than it was on the jungle path. Juanita, Abe, and Miyu follow behind me, the soldiers’ eyes all on the samurai.

  “By the way, me Dutch friends,” Abe says to the soldiers, as an afterthought. “Where would an ‘onest sailor such as meself finds ‘imself a good map o’ this ‘ere island, if he be needin’ one?”

  “If your purse has more coins that you can ever spend at the Lachende Dame…” De Groot points out the tall Opzichter’s tower on the left, “…then Van der Kaart’s workshop, right across the street from that stone building, is the place you seek.”

  Abe takes his thumb and index finger to his bandana, as if tipping an invisible hat. De Groot mirrors the gesture, then turns his attention back to the jungle through which we came.

  19

  A Bit of Haggling

  Juanita scans Duurstad’s main street from left to right. It’s mostly empty, the mid-morning sun making it increasingly uncomfortable to stay outdoors without a roof or the jungle’s canopy covering your head. “So, this is what the Lowlanders call home,” she says.

  “I have a hunch that would be Amsterdam,” I reply.

  She either doesn’t catch the joke or doesn’t find it funny; this seems to be the trend with my recent attempts at humor. She cups her hands and whispers into them…

  …a fistful of black dots comes out buzzing, dispersing in every direction.

  I check the street again. Nobody seems to have been paying attention to our witch’s activity. At least, not yet. “Didn’t you hear the guards?” I growl.

  “I did. They warned us against asking the Lord of Here and Now for favors only when near their Church, and their Church is not near.”

  “This town is so small,” I insist, “their Church can’t be far.”

  “It is indeed a small town, my child.”

  “Ya means a small ditch,” Abe grunts.

  “If our healer is here, Uitzli will not be that hard to find.” She turns to me. “What shall we do in the meantime, young Jake?”

  “The tavern, me lad,” Abe says. “This be a ditch, an’ ‘em Dutch don’t knows much, but thems sure knows ‘bout beer!”

  The Noh mask emits a short burst of eerie giggles.

  “Lord of Here and Now be praised.” Juanita smiles. “For once, this old woman agrees with our sunset warrior and our sunrise pirate. Listening to drunken tongues is how we will learn the most about Duurstad.”

  To the Lachende Dame it is, then!

  Let’s check that guild hall first, the Compagnie, and look for jobs there.

  I’ll have to disagree; I think we should pay a visit to Vander Kaart first.

  This is obvious.

  Or would be, if time didn’t matter…

  Juanita gets closer to me. “What is the matter, young Jake?”

  “Time,” I mutter to myself. “I don’t think time is on our side. And I don’t like the look of this.”

  “Back so soon, boss? You’ve just set foot in Duurstad.”

  “Surely you mean just set crutch, my dear Svetty?”

  “You still have both feet firmly planted on the ground.” She tapped the bird’s-eye view on the desk between us.

  “A man of my position always does.” I raised my hand before she rose from her seat. “I’m afraid I must skip your extraordinary coffee, Svetty dear. I’m only here for a quick question or two, if you’re allowed and able to answer them?”

  She nodded. “Shoot.”

  “How long have I been playing the game?”

  She turned to her screen and the clock reappeared on the wall; a little over six hours had passed since I’d logged in.

  “No, that’s not how you feel it in-game,” she confirmed before I could ask. “The repetitive parts—like walking across the jungle when nothing much happens—those parts feel like hours to you, but it was just a handful of minutes. It’s all technical, and I don’t—”

  “Don’t worry,” I interjected. “I don’t need the specifics right now. But when will I need to sleep? I mean myself, not my character.”

  “You are asleep right now, boss.” She smiled. “Sort of.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  She turned her screen so I could see it. The display showed a graph with lots of spiky curves and d
ots. “Boss, meet your encephalogram,” she said. “At a glance, a neurologist would assume your brain is in the deep sleep phase and having all sorts of dreams. Upon closer examination, they’d realize that… Well, again it’s technical—”

  “You mean I’m dreaming all of this?”

  “That will be one of the major selling points of Istoria, yes. The Deluxe Capsules, at least. You can literally play while you sleep and your body restores. Or, well, that’s what our trials are attempting to prove.

  “I mean, while your biological self, right now, is in what resembles deep sleep, your consciousness—” she winks at me “—needs no sleep. Body asleep, mind awake, so to speak. This allows Istoria to pull some nifty tricks, like altering the perception of time when you’re engaged in repetitive tasks.”

  “But my avatar needs to sleep. So do all the NPCs.”

  She raised her hands in surrender. “Not my fault, boss. That’s part of the realistic game design.”

  I studied intently the clock on the wall. “All right,” I said, “now the second, and most important question: Can you tell me how many of my opponents have already finished their single-player campaign?”

  A percentage flashed beneath the timer: 27.8%.

  “Shit,” I whispered. “That’s, like, bad.”

  “Could be worse, boss,” she said, obviously trying to sound encouraging. “But yeah. Could be a whole lot better.”

  “In short,” I said, “I better hurry.”

  She nodded.

  “All right.” I leaned back in my hover chair. “I bet all the money I don’t have that the standard process for me right now would be to visit the guild hall and that Lachende tavern first. Run some side quests, level up, earn money and buy gear, and only then go see about that map. But I’m already playing catch-up, so…”

  Her Razor persona took hold of her attitude as she produced a twisted grin. “No time to play it safe.”

  “Not sure if Napoleon would approve playing it fast and end up losing, though.”

  “Told you, Hardcore,” Sveta teased. “We ain’t fans of short men with big hats over here.”

  “Done deal,” I said. “Map quest, here we come.”

  “Time,” I repeat. “We have little time.” I ignore the surprised stares of my companions. “I’ll have to disagree with you all, my friends. I believe we should pay a visit to Vander Kaart.”

  “Ya cannae be serious, lad,” Abe grunts.

  “Drunken tongues are always looser,” says Juanita. “If we are to track the gossip about Uitzli, wherever men drink is where our chances will be better.”

  Miyu’s mask tilts to the left. I can feel she is narrowing her eyes, but it’s impossible to tell for sure.

  You are right. Let’s pay a visit to the Lachende Dame.

  Let’s check that guild hall first, the Compagnie, and look for jobs.

  We’ll leave beer and gossip for later. We came here for that map.

  “Gossip and beer will have to wait,” I say. “We came here for that map. We’re on a quest, Abe me mate. Let’s go solve that quest, I says!”

  “But… t’ beer, me lad,” he implores. “Think o’ t’ beer!”

  Juanita gazes at me, then nods slowly. “Jake could be right.”

  “There’ll be time for beer later, Abe me mate,” I assure him. “I gives me word to ye.”

  “Devil takes yer maps…” he grumbles.

  “C’mon.” I begin walking to the Opzichter’s tower. “The sooner we be done mappin’, old friend, the sooner ye be a-drinkin’.”

  From up close, the Opzichter’s tower is shorter than it seems from afar: only three stories high, with crude walls of stone supported by wooden beams and columns. The flag on the roof hangs limply on its pole; the two soldiers at the main entrance look about to die from boredom.

  Their hats, uniforms, muskets, and rapier-looking swords are carbon copies of those De Groot and his four soldiers had back at the town’s entrance. I can’t Appraise these two, though, hard as I try; all I get is a dark red hue flashing around their bodies.

  “Just in case,” I tell my companions, “let’s not mess with the Opzichter’s soldiers, alright? Something tells me they are way above our paygrade.”

  “Thems doesn’t looks tough, thems two…”

  Miyu makes an almost imperceptibly small, stiff bow toward the two guards.

  “I would listen to Jake, pirate,” advises Juanita. “The Smoking Mirror whispers that powers far stronger than mine protect those two.”

  Abe spits. “Yarr lord, witch, be havin’ even less power ‘ere than out there in yarr rottin’ jungle.”

  “Be as it may,” she replies, “it would be foolish to confront those two soldiers.”

  “Take it easy, guys,” I say. “We don’t even have a reason to pick a fight with them. Not to mention every other guard in town who will come running.” I scan the street, pivoting over my crutches. “Besides, it may be a good thing to have them around, in case somebody picks a fight with us.”

  The street looks harmless enough, though. Low, decently-built houses made mostly of wood, and a few workshops. This must be the nicest part of town, and the NPCs haven’t been paying us much attention, save the odd glance at my crutches and Miyu’s naginata.

  And I can’t detect anybody with the slightest aggressive intentions.

  “Yeah,” I say after completing a full three-sixty. “Those two soldiers may even be in our side if somebody else goes berserk on us.” I peer up at our pirate. “So, let’s all be well mannered an’ polite like Earls an’ Dukes an’ Counts during the Sunday mass in Westminster Abbey, an’ start ourselves no brawl. Ye hear, Abe me mate?”

  “Meh.” He sulks. “No beer, no brawlin’ … boringest harbor in t’ Caribbean, this ‘ere slum.”

  The two soldiers, red hue still flashing around them, pay us no attention.

  The Noh mask turns toward a workshop across the street. “Mappu,” she whispers.

  I let my crutches lead the way, my three companions in tow. The workshop is a solid, one-story building. The white walls and dark, wooden beams give it a whiff of alpine melancholy that seems out of place with the tropical sun and sky above us. Over the entrance’s lintel, a small plaque reads “Inktmeester & Van der Kaart – Topografen” in black letters over a red background.

  I turn to Abe. “Is that’s what’s funny?” I ask, nodding at the sign. “Vander isn’t his first name, but just part of his last name?”

  “Meh,” he grumbles, still sulking like a child who didn’t get candy.

  I shrug as best as my crutches allow me to, then step into the workshop.

  The shade inside welcomes us, and I realize how drenched in sweat my wide-brim hat has become. I take it off, both to cool my head and out of politeness, respecting our agreement with De Groot. Juanita quickly removes the hat from my hands, so I can better maneuver around.

  The interior lives up to the workshop’s denomination: wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling rows of shelves and drawers stacked full of carefully rolled paper. It’s like looking at a giant beehive with square-shaped rather than hexagonal cells, dripping paper instead of honey.

  There’s a huge wooden table at the back that reminds me a little of the one Sveta and I share in the Lobby, although this one’s surface is buried under mountains and forests of notepads, pencils, sketchbooks, and papers. Across these mountains sits a squat man with a neat, short beard, a shiny bald head, and rimless round glasses, who inspects our motley crew with arched eyebrows and a half-amused, half-inquisitive smirk. He resembles a hatless gnome, if gnomes could be found perched upon stools inside Dutch Caribbean workshops.

  I attempt a crude, short bow; my crutches remind me mid-way what a bad idea that is, so I produce as courteous a nod as I can muster. “Mister Van der Kaart, I presume?”

  “Ja,” the little bald man says. Then he widens his tiny, impish smirk. “Maar nee.”

  “Great,” I growl. “Dude speaks Dutch.”

  I make
a mental note to, at a later stage, provide my good friend Maneesh from Engineering with detailed feedback about how there is such a thing as ‘too much of a good thing’—how too much salt can spoil the broth, and how too much frigging realism just ain’t no goddamn fun in a game.

  “I don’t think,” I say, looking back at my companions, “that any of you speak Dutch, do you?”

  “Ol’ Abe don’t even speaks English that much.” The pirate smirks.

  Juanita shakes her head; the Noh mask looks blankly at me.

  “I do, though,” says a woman’s voice coming from our right. “And my English is at least a match for a seasoned sailor’s.”

  I strain my eyes to see a small doorframe among the rows upon rows of shelves covering the right wall, partially obscured by the lack of direct lighting. I can almost make out the contours of a human figure standing there.

  “And what Mister Inktmeester has just said,” continues the figure, “was ‘yes, but no.’” She speaks perfect English, although the way she stresses the consonants betrays a foreign accent; Dutch, I suppose.

  I look at the hatless gnome with the impish grin. “Oh, I see. Then well met, good sir; I assume you are Mister Inktmeester.”

  The gnome nods politely.

  I turn to the figure by the small doorframe. “And would I be correct in thinking you are Van der Kaart, then?”

  “Your deductive powers are as strong as the crutches that carry you,” she says.

  Is that a compliment, an insult, or…?

  Van der Kaart steps into the light. She is somewhere between her late fifties and early sixties, thin and tall as a bamboo reed, with hair white like dry bone. She’s slender and graceful, and her sparkling blue eyes seem to miss nothing. Her plain white shirt has long sleeves rolled up to her elbows, accentuated by dark wool breeches and crumpled, soft leather boots.

  “Is that the joke, Abe ol’ mate?” I ask, turning to look at our pirate. “The mapmaker being her, not him?”