Finding a Body (The Dark Herbalist Book #4) LitRPG series

by Michael Atamanov

  Riding skill increased to level 36!

  Animal Control skill increased to level 69!

  Trading skill increased to level 45!

  Day Three. Old Friends

  MY NEXT VIDEO clip was not like any that came before. I just had too much pent-up negativity over what was happening. I had stepped on too many thorns in this inert overly bureaucratized corporation, where issues that required an immediate response might not be handled for days, or just be left to play out on their own. Unfortunately, there were a ton of examples of both. For one, there were some minor hiccups during the Great Hunt event when employees didn’t want to take responsibility for their own actions. Or the unfinished Gray Pack control interface, which was only completed after I’d been in control of the wolves for a while. Or Fenrir’s Cursed Regalia, which had only partially been in the game at all. I had to go through the vice-president herself to get that resolved.

  And sure, I had told the viewers that I had a few of the Fenrir items. Actually, it was already something of an open secret. My most dangerous opponents had already known since I made my wish to the Djinn Sultan. And in the past few days, that information had spread far and wide based on search engine metrics for phrases containing the words “Fenrir’s Cursed Regalia.” There was even a whole topic on the game forums titled, “What is the Dark Sovereign wearing?”

  But I had the most gripes for the clumsiness and poor planning of the Dark Sovereign event. I’d already been the Dark Sovereign for three days, but where were the unique perks and skills I’d been promised? I mean, what even was there to distinguish me as a fearsome game superboss, whose heavy footsteps were supposed to make all Boundless Realm shake? I was still just a normal Goblin Herbalist! I guess it was fine not to get experience or plusses for the unique achievement, but where the hell were the Dark Sovereign quests or missions I was supposed to use to gain experience? Was it another “sorry, it didn’t occur to us?” Even if that was true, it had already been three days since then. There were several departments working on the global event with dozens if not hundreds of total workers on the project. Didn’t a single one of them have time?! I’d never believe it in my life!

  And I also had a bunch of restrictions weighing me down. They took my phone and made it impossible for me to contact the outside world. I couldn’t even see my own sister. I was locked in my office and wouldn’t be allowed to leave it for ten days. I was forced out of the game if my behavior ever wasn’t to my employers’ liking, and when that happened they replaced me with a program. I was forbidden from using the Gray Pack in large cities and it, meanwhile, was my main weapon! I was technically not given even part of what a ruler is entitled to. I was required to buy my own servants, soldiers, building materials and even furniture! What bullshit! Was Boundless Realm the richest corporation on the planet or some random little mom-and-pop where the workers had to buy all their own supplies? What, they just didn’t think about it? Their budget of several billion credits just didn’t have room for such a minor issue? It reminded me of an old joke I’d heard about a successful company renting a stapler.

  And don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t lose heart or give up. Quite the opposite, I was prepared to go to war against all Boundless Realm. But I did understand that with the present state of things, my resistance would be quite short-lived. A few days, maybe even less and the divisions of undying would be outside my castle. And then there would be a harsh battle not for life, but to the death. But I already knew the distribution of forces too well to even hope I might win. So if the corporation wanted something bigger than an endless chase for some uncatchable Dark Sovereign who always fled through portals to another part of Boundless Realm , it was time for the employees to put forth at least some effort.

  I put my perspective on the night battle near Frigid Lake in the clip as well. Sure, the enemy had pulled one over on me, I admitted that candidly. I didn’t know exactly who was in command there, but I thanked them for the painful lesson and even promised generous compensation, monetary or otherwise, for the experience. Together with that, I pointed out faults in the game system that were keeping me from using my abilities fully, or letting the battle get interesting. I could only get a very limited number of warriors through a portal, and my NPC’s were low-level compared to the players waiting for me. And though the first problem could be solved, for example by opening a few portals at once, my soldiers and I simply could not gain experience fast enough. There were just no easy sources near enough to my castle.

  I couldn’t stop myself from ribbing my enemies a bit, too. Those five thousand players (and that was the figure I’d seen on the Boundless Realm forum) knew perfectly that I had a flying mount, nevertheless they allowed VIXEN to land and evacuate me from the battlefield. The players used all their nets and lassos on me, and there was simply nothing left to immobilize my flying snake. And those ham-fisted archers... I was no archery expert, but just five hits had landed on a target as gigantic as my level-110 Royal Forest Wyvern. After something like that, I’d have sent my subordinates to retrain as gardeners or doormen, because shooting arrows was clearly not their strong side.

  I uploaded the video clip and collapsed on the sofa, just beat. I needed rest, because this endless day and especially night had me tired as a dog!

  * * *

  “GET UP, TIMOTHY. W e need to have a serious talk!”

  I was jerked awake fairly unceremoniously, and the voice of the man who woke me up from the dream was very familiar but, at the same time, very unexpected. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not in a million years!

  I cracked one eye, then a second and spent a long time looking into the familiar face before I realized who it was — Alexandro Lavrius, my very first boss at the Boundless Realm Corporation! Maybe not in an austere business suit, like I was used to, but jeans and a t-shirt, but it was him beyond a shadow of a doubt. How could that be? He was fired long ago for financial machinations with the corporation’s virtual property! Where had he come from and why was he in my office?! I woke up once and for all and sat up on the sofa, batting my eyes in surprise.

  “I can see you’re surprised,” the dark curly-haired Greek laughed. “Yes Timothy, I was hired back on at the corporation, because there were a couple algorithms they couldn’t crack without me.”

  I immediately guessed he was talking about my NPC wife Taisha. Many people had an interest in her encrypted algorithms, and I knew her development was somehow connected with Alexandro Lavrius. But first he spoke about something else:

  “You really kicked up a fuss with your last video... The players are having a charged discussion on the forums, and lots of them support you. They demand the event be made more interesting and the Dark Sovereign be made stronger. And our workers are just making excuses. The president of the corporation even got involved in the discussion and promised to figure out why such an important event is getting insufficient attention from tech support, and the Special Projects and Global Modelling departments. Also the president promised to figure out if an employee of the corporation really was being imprisoned and kept isolated. Ugh, and heads will roll! You just have a unique talent for messing with directors!”

  I kept silent, because what he’d just said could apply to him as well, having been fired from his job directing Special Projects at least partially because of something I did. Alexandro Lavrius was not expecting any commentary from me. He walked over to the window, and found himself blinded by the bright sun, lowering the blinds a bit.

  “But I’m not here because of the night battle and not even because of the Dark Sovereign.”

  “Is it Taisha?” I suggested, and he nodded in confirmation.

  “Yes, that is the very reason they brought me back on. You see, Timothy... how to explain? Have you ever experienced true inspiration? When you do something you love with your whole heart, your mind is firing on all cylinders, and you aren’t even really thinking about what you’re doing or how? That was about how we made the next-genera
tion NPC.”

  Yes, I knew that feeling well. I fairly often did things without thinking, at times making decisions that looked strange and paradoxical while also somehow certain they were right. And that was exactly what I told him. So taking advantage of the opportunity, I clarified:

  “Next-generation NPC? And what is supposed to make it unique?”

  “It was supposed to be completely different. Not an NPC in the usual understanding of the word, not a program limited in its choices, where all possible moves are already proscribed. This was to be a nearly intelligent being, capable of analyzing the world around it, making conclusions and learning not only from its errors, but from any source. The work order came from the very top and went to me and a group of programmers. It wasn’t even from President Thomas Heywood. It was straight from the owners of the corporation.”

  I whistled in surprise, but Alexandro Lavrius confirmed I had heard correctly:

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. You see, after the event with Fenrir 1.0 and his self-teaching Gray Pack, we have lots of valuable material in the form of algorithms, data and programming libraries. But at a certain stage in its development, the Gray Pack attained such a high level of intelligence that defeating it became a nearly impossible undertaking. Fenrir and his pack were the first digital consciousnesses to plan out many moves in advance like a grand master chess player. It would sacrifice individual members to gain advantages and avoid negative consequences. It wasn’t quite enough for the digital entity to become something fundamentally new and better adapted for survival in Boundless Realm than a living player, but it was close. It is not a mind in the traditional understanding, but an agglomeration of lived experience combined with the ability to self-correct. Getting that agglomeration concentrated into one NPC rather than spread thin through a whole pack was our mission. And we beat ourselves up over it for a long time. We even achieved certain successes, but...” here he just splayed his arms in disappointment. “The NPC didn’t recognize itself as a self-sufficient being, it didn’t understand its own nature and still needed someone else to lead it.”

  I waited for the story to continue. I mean, I needed to know how this “agglomeration of experience,” or whatever he wanted to call the next-generation NPC algorithms, ended up in Taisha, but he glossed over that particular detail. Either he didn’t know, or didn’t want to say. However he said the corporation had determined the location of my pretty thief wife after the Djinn Sultan helped her flee.

  “In the Al-Pars province, which is located on a different continent of Boundless Realm , there has been some strange activity in the last few days. In a tract of hilly lands far from any city, where players seldom visit, something has been causing turmoil. NPC’s are coming out of hibernation for no clear reason, leaving their assigned locations and interacting with one another. They’ve become so active that we even needed to allocate extra server resources to the area.”

  “Has anyone figured out what’s happening?” I asked. The former director answered:

  “Yes, of course. There’s an NPC army gathering there to support the Dark Sovereign, and that army is led by your wife Taisha. There are currently eight thousand fanged and scaled monsters under her command. They are primarily desert nagas, which are half-human half-snake. But there are also manticores, chimeras and ankhs, which are half-human and half-bird. And none of that would be a huge deal, but recently Taisha charmed the Sphinx into her army. And that, you see, is a unique high-level creature connected with many game quests. It left its assigned location and followed Taisha into the desert.”

  I laughed and even gave a few sparing claps of approval:

  “That Taisha really is a smart one! I just want to know how she managed to remove the program restrictions.”

  It was meant as a rhetorical question, so it was all the more surprising when he answered:

  “About the same way you do it. She tweaked the world to her needs.”

  “But...” I knew this topic well and immediately caught on a discrepancy in Alexandro Lavrius’s words: “To do that you need to become a superboss- or even demigod-level character. And you need Direct Intervention Points!”

  I thought I had him backed into a corner, but the former Special Projects director twisted out of it with ease:

  “Timothy, you must have forgotten that your NPC wife has the Leader’s Shadow skill, so she is well within the bounds of the game mechanics to act as your official representative. Sure, Taisha doesn’t get any extra experience from that because she’s higher level than you now, but that doesn’t stop the NPC from seeing her for exactly who she is, the legal spouse of the Dark Sovereign. So she is entitled to everything that goes with that. And as for the Direct Intervention Points... well, when has a lack of them ever stopped you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I didn’t understand Alexandro’s last question, but he eagerly explained in greater detail:

  “Timothy, you have tweaked Boundless Realm to fit your needs a number of times! Like back when you broke into that Cursed House instead of completing the newbie missions in the normal order. That was originally a deadly quest location made for players over level fifty, but you just up and moved in! And the game was tweaked, changing a whole bunch of variables and even one constant. It actually marked the abandoned hut in the forest as a safe dwelling, where monsters weren’t even allowed to enter! Or when you handed out quests to your companions, both NPC and player. Did you spend any Direct Intervention Points then? You didn’t even know they existed! Or something very recent: you broke through the magic dome over the battlefield on your wyvern. Timothy, weren’t you told that, in order to spend Direct Intervention Points, you had to be sitting on the throne?”

  I felt embarrassed by his persistent and openly mocking gaze.

  “I somehow forgot about that... The throne of the Dark Sovereign is uncomfortable. It’s huge and it burns my skin. I only climbed onto it once, then I forgot and never used it again. I was just sure that it would work, then it did.”

  “Well, in that way you and Taisha are alike. Maybe that’s why she’s drawn to you.”

  I considered it an appropriate moment to ask a question that had held my attention for a while:

  “Say, who worked on Taisha’s appearance? I mean, she’s so pretty. She can’t be a randomly generated character. Some experienced artist must have spent days slaving over her. You should go find whoever that was. They might be able to tell you a lot about how she was created. And that might help you understand what makes her such a unique NPC.”

  “Bravo, Timothy. Very good question! But do you really think her doll-like appearance and body, which is attractive by human standards, didn’t lead us to the idea she was made by hand? You bet your ass it did! We looked deep into it. Anyway, according to the system logs, the village of Tysh and its inhabitants, along with the entire surrounding area was generated as you and the mavka walked down the road toward it. Before that, the map just contained an empty undiscovered area. The whole location was just in the design stage. It was very crude and schematic with just basic characteristics. And because there were no players nearby, there was no reason to waste server resources to finish it.”

  “Does that mean Taisha wasn’t there before?” I asked to gain a clearer understanding.

  “That sounds about right. Taisha was ‘born’ just a few minutes before the Goblin Herbalist by the name Amra and his sister the Wood Nymph Valerianna Quickfoot entered the village of Tysh. And based on the fact it created a female character of your goblin race with an unusual and attractive appearance, which you clearly were unable to ignore, I think we can assume this NPC girl was created especially for you.”

  “But... who made her? And for what purpose?”

  Unfortunately, Alexandro Lavrius just shrugged his shoulders indefinitely:

  “We don’t know that yet. But I’m sure if we ever do, we can figure out all the rest. For now, this is your mission: meet back up with Taisha and lure her into your castle w
ith whatever truths or untruths it takes. The fortress of the Dark Sovereign is still on its own special server, so we are very interested to see whether Taisha can truly function there. If Taisha hesitates and doesn’t want to go into the castle, it’s no big shame. We’ll create another game location she won’t be afraid of. No, Timothy, don’t you worry. We aren’t going to capture your NPC girlfriend. We’re just going to observe her to better understand her essence.”

  But that didn’t exactly calm me down. In fact, it only set me more on edge. Not going to capture Taisha my ass... Knowing how great a value my NPC wife represented to the corporation, I thought the opposite. They would try to catch her and study her as soon as they got the chance, and they were just giving me a song and dance to reassure me. But I didn’t tell them my doubts. In fact, I decided to pretend that I believed all their tales and exploit that to get myself a little favor in the game:

  “Alexandro, there is one problem. Taisha has a portal scroll in her inventory that she was given by the Legion of Steel . As soon as the Dark Sovereign, i.e. me, is in Taisha’s visual range, it will open a portal and a squadron of extremely dangerous high-level players will come flooding out. And it cannot just be secretly taken from her. Taisha knows it exists and is on high alert.”

  “And what do you suggest?” he inquired.

  “My suggestion is as follows: find a game location in a dangerous place — for example over the mouth of an active volcano, or in the middle of an endless ocean teeming with sea monsters. Create an illusion there of a peaceful meadow with sheep grazing or something else totally inoffensive, and make a magical platform in the air that will last a few seconds. I will also need two portal scrolls to the trap: one for me, and a second for Taisha. And I’ll need another scroll to my wife’s NPC army. From there it will all be easy: after dying I will respawn in my castle, and Taisha next to me. Then I won’t even have to convince her to enter my castle.”