I could see that the internal decision he’d come to in the battle was that my clan and I posed a better chance of saving any of his people than he did alone. It must have been a difficult decision and the severity of it wasn’t lost on me.
“Grish, I promise that when we are strong enough, we will take revenge on those arrogant bastards and save everyone that they hold captive. Your fallen brothers and sisters won’t have died in vain and we will honour and remember them, but right now we need to be smart, grow in strength and plan our next moves.” I spoke softly and sincerely, which seemed to appease Grish, who puffed his chest out and responded.
“I help all I can,” he spoke in his deepest and most commanding voice.
“But why you try to stop me?” He added thoughtfully.
Right, I hadn’t voiced my concerns yet. “Sano is a...” I searched for the word and resisted finishing my sentence with ‘shit’, “traveller. “
Grish looked at me blankly. “...it means that he doesn’t die, he just comes back to life somewhere else. When he said he’ll be back, I’m pretty sure he meant that he would actually come back for us, and not alone this time. He doesn’t know exactly where our settlement is, but they’ll probably keep searching until they find it,” I explained. After all, it’s what I would’ve done.
Ushuk joined the conversation, “What if we move? He asked.
I was loathed to admit that this would be a good solution to our problem, but our camp was so well positioned - hidden to anyone unaware of its presence, easily defensible, surrounded by an abundance of resources, no wild enemies had come wandering in looking for a fight yet, and not to mention the beauty of the place. No, moving away from Coyote Creek was not an option in my mind.
“I don’t think they’ll ever stop coming now that they have our scent,” I said. “We need to get stronger than them so that it’s not worth their effort to try to overpower us, and the only way that happens is if we stay put and have time to grow. Our seclusion is our best weapon right now, so that’s what we must use to our advantage.
Chapter Nine, Intermission
I
nternal memorandum, Rapture Entertainment.
Our initial schema regarding the population of Freedom Online as a self-sustaining entity with a hierarchical system mimicking that of real life is proving a success. As you all know, Freedom Online’s high price tag was intended to be used as a barrier to entry for any individuals below a certain level of funding, whilst the Lottery was used as a way to generate interest amongst the lower levels of society. By providing something that only the richest can have, as well as something the poorest can’t have, demand for Freedom Online is estimated at over ten times the current supply available.
Within the next month, the playership is expected to rise with the inclusion of a new server farm in Arizona. The new server farm, labelled Project A2 will represent the company’s ability to house and care for a total of over one million players.
The price for places within Freedom Online are to remain as they are until the minimum one-year period is complete, and the first players to leave the virtual world tell their stories to the world. It is estimated that no more than ten percent of players will want to leave Freedom Online however prior arrangements will mean that some will not have the choice. This number is based upon the pleasure response recorded as an average throughout the game network interface.
Once the gamers begin to leave their capsules, a mass media marketing campaign will ensue, cutting the cost of time spent in a ‘used’ gaming pod by twenty percent. This will create an influx of players on a lower affordability matrix, who will have a one-year lag behind the elite, who should have securely established themselves as high-level denizens of the gaming world by that time.
Our long-term objective is that each time a gaming pod has been used by a new gamer, the cost will be reduced by twenty percent, until it is at an affordable rate for everyone, as indicated by that year’s retail price index.
You may be able to recognise from this plan, that we are attempting to create a duplicate class structure to that of the real world, within Freedom Online. The wealthiest people have the opportunity to gain a significant advantage over that of the lower classes and are therefore able to cement themselves as the forerunners of the game’s economy and power system.
End of Memo.
This was the first time that the company had outright told the ‘staff’ of their plans to turn Freedom Online into a weighted economy, but Rachel was hardly surprised. She closed the memo down and dutifully ignored the latest Adobe Reader update notification before looking around to see if anyone else was as annoyed as she was.
The head offices of Rapture Entertainment weren’t the glass-fronted wonders of modernisation that the FIVR Centres were, rather they were drab plasterboarded-and-painted boxes that the twenty-first century had earmarked as ‘functional and affordable’. Her desk was a rounded ‘L’ shape and sat in the middle of a room with eleven others, all with monitors facing away from each other. This had always been the company’s mistake, as no-one could see when anyone else played a game of sneaky solitaire – although there was always the tell-tale movement of the mouse and incessant clicking that would give away the game.
It looked as though nobody cared. Everyone was simply getting on with whatever they were doing without looking up from their screens. Rachel wondered if they’d actually read the memo that had been circulated to ‘all employees’, she knew they had of course, but who were they really? The lowest levels of the lowest levels of the company.
Rachel worked in the sales office. Not a glamorous life of course – unlike the front-row glamour of the receptionists at the FIVR centres with their high heels, bright red lipstick and long curly blond hair, the sales clerks were allowed to wear – not that they needed any encouragement – comfortable jeans, t-shirts or shirts, and they could have their hair however the hell they wanted it. They were typically smarter than your average bimbo but had the knack for talking to their customers without the distraction of the added visual aids.
Rachel had no interest in gaming herself, and didn’t care for the world of Freedom Online more than she’d cared for the ‘World of Warcraft’ or whatever it was that she’d overheard people talking about on the odd occasion. No, she had no clue about actual gaming but had no problem in talking her customers through the hoops that they’d need to jump through to get a ticket to Freedom. It wasn’t like they didn’t already know more about it than she did – although sometimes they did ask more detailed questions about the virtual world, to which she would respond with the company dictated script: “Freedom Online can make all of your wishes come true, but it can also be a dark place. If you aren’t ready to face the real world, virtually, then Freedom Online isn’t the place for you.” It had been written by a team of psychologists to entice users who were on the fence, taunting them into spending their money and challenging them to ‘prove this woman wrong’.
Of course, Freedom was popular enough to generate its own demand without such tactics, but getting people to pay for a place in a queue of indeterminate length was really a stroke of genius by the company.
Rachel rose from her chair and walked into her manager’s office at the end of the room. It had a single desk, which her manager sat behind and a chair facing it for ‘guests’. The only way it could have been more cliché was if there was a bowl of hard sweets on the desk that no one was allowed to eat.
“Mr Wilson?” she said as she pulled the door closed behind her.
“Tim,” the manager replied with a smile.
“Right, Tim.” She repeated.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, turning his attention away from his screen and locking eyes with Rachel. A pointed display of his grasp of positive body language.
“It’s about the memo…” She started.
“What about it?”
“Well, it sounds like…”
He interrupted her again. “Like we want to
make the rich richer and the poor poorer?”
“Well actually, yes,” Rachel replied, taken somewhat off guard by his frank admission.
“You aren’t a gamer, are you?” he exhaled as he spoke and his attention moved away from her and back towards his screen.
“Actually no, I never really play anything…well candy crush sometimes.”
“That…doesn’t count as a game,” Tim interrupted her bluntly. “The thing is, what do you think makes people want to play video games in the first place?”
Rachel thought for a long moment before answering his question. “To…escape from reality?” she finally stated as though it was a question – although in truth it’d been partly due to her role within the company that had led her to this conclusion.
“That is partly true, but it’s a little more complicated than that. As you know – we market Freedom Online as an alternate reality as much as it is a virtual one – do what you want, be what you want et cetera,” Rachel nodded along with his statement. “People play video games one, because yes they want to escape from their reality, two, to be able to do things that they wouldn’t be able to otherwise in real life, ‘c’, as a source of entertainment and four, to compete with other people.” He paused to let those points sink in. “Now, those things are quite subjective, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t really understand…” Rachel started.
Tim interrupted her again. “Well take the idea that people play games because they want to be able to do things that they wouldn’t be able to do in real life. Perhaps I can do something like go on a beach holiday to Florida, and you can’t afford that – if the game let you go on holiday to Florida, that’s something I could do in real life and you couldn’t – so why would I buy the game, you follow?”
Rachel nodded. “But Freedom Online gives you the ability to do anything you want, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“Well, that is exactly the problem. What is it that the richest people in the world can’t do, what would make them want to leave their real-world lives of luxury and wealth, where they can already do pretty much anything that they want to, and go and live in an alternate reality?” Tim asked.
Rachel shook her head as she thought. “They wouldn’t…would they?”
“OK, think about this. Why do celebrities and rich, powerful people take in abundances of class A drugs, alcohol and make other, certainly morally bankrupt decisions? Don’t answer that, I’ll tell you. It’s because human beings, all human beings are hard-coded to rebel, and the only way people can rebel is if they have something to rebel against.”
“Can that be true?” Rachel asked, her mouth moving faster than her mind.
“Believe me, it is. From the top down, the wealthiest of the wealthy rebel against the law with their fast cars, drugs and alcohol – causing spikes in adrenaline and dopamine levels. They get addicted to negative stimuli, so Freedom Online provides a platform where these behaviours are rewarded with – albeit simulated versions of – these responses. By letting these individuals into Freedom Online early, we have given them a substantial boost to their in-game characteristics, and the chance to cement themselves as the top echelons of the virtual world – something that you’d want to return to, right?”
“I’m following,” Rachel said with a single nod.
“Now imagine the next wave of players – still wealthy individuals, yes, but not quite as high up as the first players. This gives these new players something to strive for – power. They will fight tooth and nail to become one of those who can do anything with all of the power that they wield, but will always unfortunately just be fingertips away.” Tim explained.
“So we are creating something for everyone to struggle against?” Rachel asked.
“Not exactly – Freedom Online creates something for everyone to play for. After all, hitting a tennis ball against a wall is fun and all, but having someone trying to play it past you with every swing is a completely different animal.”
“Right, so by the time the game is cheap enough for everyone to be able to afford it, there’ll be an entire social structure within Freedom Online that they can struggle to fight their way upwards, which gives everyone a reason to keep playing, to either keep what they have or fight for what they want?” Rachel summarised.
“Exactly,” Tim said as he stood up from behind his desk. “Let the players create their own demand, and we just sit back and take their money.”
Rachel couldn’t argue with those facts, but wondered how morally acute it was to capitalise on the fragility of the human psyche. Actually, she knew that no matter how it had ever been dressed up in the past, that this is exactly how every large company made their fortunes in one way or another.
Chapter Ten, Sympathy
I
t took me a while to fully trust that Grish was on our side, but what else could I have done? If I’d left him in the ruins of his own settlement, Sano could have returned mob-handed and forced him into captivity with god knows how many of his former clan. I felt as though the goblin warrior had been through enough, besides if I truly wanted to start defending our little slice of heaven then I needed all the hands I could get. Not to mention that besides those bastards, Grish was the highest level person I’d seen. Not that he was a person but you get my meaning.
No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t fathom what would cause a sane, rational person to take actions like these. I could assume that these people were either very rich, or far less likely that it was laughable, had won the lottery as I had, so how could they actually go out of their way to decide to act like animals – and not very nice ones? The only idea that I could come up with was that perhaps the game was rewarding them somehow, but what kind of sick developers would allow and encourage that?
I didn’t have the time to speculate right away, I needed to come up with a masterplan for firstly defence, and then retaliation. I knew that judging by how they’d managed to capture an entire city, they must have all been very good fighters and well equipped to boot, which was more than what could be said for my frankly infantile clan, but that didn’t mean I’d just lay down and take it. I had a responsibility to every resident in my charge to not only provide them a flourishing settlement, but protect them from the dangers that they may face – which definitely included man. I knew it was just a game and all, and these goblins were just virtual beings, but when you spend a little time in a new reality and really got to know these creations, it’s hard not to form a sort of bond with them. Besides, what kind of person would I really be if I didn’t frown upon their sort of behaviour.
‘Oh god, I really want to cut down a tree.’
It was as though my stomach was rumbling, I had such a hunger to enact my profession that I could think of almost nothing else clearly. Cutting down just one tree wouldn’t hurt, would it?
‘Oh shit, is that the time?’ I thought as the sun had set and I realised I was chopping down my second tree, illuminated by the distant firelight of my camp. I’d spent all day on my task again, without even realising it. It was productive of course, and the resources gathered would be well used, but I needed to concentrate harder on keeping my wits about me.
By now my construction yard had been completed, I examined it as I walked back into camp, ready for my evening meal. It looked like a small shack with a large yard, as though it was a primitive tool hire centre.
Coyote Creek Construction Yard
Resources:Wood:5
Stone: 12
Available Buildings:
Storehouse - 4 Wood
The Construction Yard can house a number of building materials but is unable to store perishable items. A storehouse keeps your good fresh and ready to use indefinitely, as well as any spill-over from the construction yard.
Cooking Fire – 1 Wood
An army marches on its stomach, and so does a clan. The cooking fire provides a place for your clan to gather and share in the food that you provide.
Progression to: Kitchen, Canteen
Tent – Cost Varies
With a place to sleep and call their own, your clan members will be happier and look more favourable toward you. A basic tent can house a single resident, while larger and more complex designs are capable of holding mand more, although material costs will vary
Progression to: Huts, Dens, Houses
Library 10 Wood, 1 Iron Bar, 2 Stone
The library is a necessity for any clan looking to further themselves technologically or spiritually. A researcher can use a library to not only document the clan’s vast achievements so that they may be written into the history books, but also can research new technologies and magic, which can prove the difference between a clan falling at the first hurdle, or flourishing.
Forge – 4 Wood, 1 Iron Bar, 2 Stone
The forge turns metal ores mined from the ground into ingots or bars, which can then in turn be used to create a wide arrange of metal items, not to mention weapons and armour.
Tanner – 6 Wood, 1 Stone
Much like the forge, the tanner turns animal skeins into usable items such as drinking vessels or basic clothing. Its main function however, is the creation of leather which an armourer can use to make leather items.
Armoury – 4 Wood, 4 Stone, 1 Iron Bar
Taking leather from the tanner and metal bars or ingots from the forge, the armourer creates weapons and armour for use in battle. The quality of the finished items is heavily reliant on the quality of the raw materials.
Barracks – 10 Wood, 8 Stone
The barracks is where warriors can train and hone their skills. Adults who have not yet received a skill can gain the warrior trait by training in the barracks, so that they do not need to be taught directly by another warrior.
The Copper Rose Page 13