“Hey,” I messaged Lovebird, who was online.
“I am so sorry you had to go to the prison,” she replied.
“Yes, it’s kind of boring here. No quests of any kind.”
“You shouldn’t have killed the man.”
“Not a wise move on my part, I agree. Are you guys still in the hotel?”
“Yes. We are just sitting here doing nothing. Rajahard is kind of upset that you didn’t use the paralysis spell on the man. How long are they going to keep you there?”
“Three days,” I replied.
I chatted with Lovebird for a few more minutes, after which she said that she had to return to the real world.
“I am curious, are you in any kind of problem in the real world?” I ventured to ask.
She was online but she didn’t reply for at least a couple of minutes. I had definitely asked her a wrong question. Couldn’t I stick to asking things that were not about her real life? I could really not stop the curious guy inside me. I thought she was interested in me and was not sticking around just because I had helped her to level up and gain gold. Then she finally replied.
“Yes,” she said.
“If there is any way I could help, do let me know.”
It was much easier to talk to Lovebird now that she was not sitting directly in front of me. But I could still imagine her face, particularly her beautiful eyes.
“Rohan,” she said, “I think I must tell you something.”
“Go on. I am listening.”
“I am from a country that… that’s not exactly popular.”
I paused for a moment. Was she from some kind of a rogue nation?
“My country is in the midst of a civil war.”
Now I knew which one. I realised that she probably lived around three thousand kilometres west of me in the real world. There was only one nation that was always in the news because of its civil war, which had been stretching for six years now. But at the same time I didn’t know Prithvi Online had been launched in that country too.
“I am sorry for your country,” I said. “I hope things get better soon.”
I didn’t really know what to type. I had no experience living in a war zone. Either ways I knew that things probably sucked where she was living.
“From the looks of it, it’s only getting worse,” she replied. “But I am trying to get my brother an education. I don’t want him to become involved in the fighting. My parents are already gone.”
“Like to a different country?” I dared to ask, though I almost knew what was coming next.
“No… Dead.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I am sorry.”
“It has stopped hurting now. It’s been three years. Anyway, I think I should go now. My brother would be home in a short while. His tutor lives just a block away. Have to go now.”
“Okay. Keep your brother close.”
After a couple of minutes Lovebird logged out. I leaned my head against the wall thinking about all that she had said. I hoped she and her brother would be okay. But at the same time I wondered how she had got access to the game capsule. I couldn’t help but think that it was a bit lame on her part to waste money buying such an expensive game capsule when the times were so hard. Then another part of me said that perhaps she was just tired of the war, and wanted to escape it if only for an hour or two by coming to Prithvi. It also explained why she was so irregularly active. Just a couple of hours in two or three days. And she always seemed in a hurry to log out. Today was the only day she had stayed for longer.
Rajahard and Ladyjane logged out too, after Ladyjane sent me a quick message.
“Be well.”
I just leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling of the prison, thinking about all the events that had commenced today. If only I had not met that stupid perma player, I wouldn’t be here. I couldn’t believe he had followed us all the way from the Rak village to the Monster Inn. I recalled the taste of the dinosaur dishes in my mouth. At least something good had happened. I would visit the monster inn again in the future.
Perhaps I could also introduce dinosaur dishes in the Ravana’s Inn? I was the partial owner after all, Nanda would listen to me.
The only person whom I had friended that was online was Grimguy. It was of course impossible for him to be offline since he was a perma player.
“Hey,” I messaged him.
“Yeah. Where are you, man? Quest completed?”
“Yup. I unlocked my first spell. Now, I can paralyse people.”
“Cool. When will you come to the inn? I had something to show you. A new find. My solo quest kind of paid off.”
“I won’t be coming today.”
“But you only returned from the real world today.”
“I am in the prison, lol.”
It was a moment before Grimguy replied, apparently reeling from what I had just said.
“What?!”
He messaged me a second time before I could reply.
“How! Did you kill someone?”
“Yes. I kind of lost my head. There was this psycho who was giving me a hard time. In fact he was the one who nearly killed me.”
I recalled almost choking to death. It had been among the worst experiences of my life. One moment I was eating delicious food, and the next moment I was struggling to breathe air.
“So how long will you be in?” Grimguy asked.
“Three days.”
“That sucks. Anyway, I am working on something, but I can’t tell you about it now.”
“Why? Tell me all about it. I am really bored.”
“I can’t. Messages can be hacked.”
I didn’t know that. I would have to be careful not to say anything super important in a message.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s less now. There was actually a magic stone which could be used for hacking messages. The magic stone wasn’t created by the game developers though. So no one knows how it appeared. It’s said there are still many such magic stones around. The first big case involved a person losing 50,000 gold. But the developers did fix the case by giving the person 60,000 gold.”
“That sounds dangerous. Anyway, go do your work, while I brood over my life and the crime I committed.”
“Enjoy your stay in the prison.”
I went over to the bars of the cell. I wasn’t hungry but I called to the guard, asking when I would get food.
“Once in the morning, once at night,” he replied indifferently.
I noticed that the guard had a long scar running down his cheek all the way to his neck. It didn’t look something very old.
“Don’t you heal?” I suddenly asked, curious. Now that I thought about it, I had seen many NPCs sporting scars and such, but players lacked them.
“We do. But it’s more like how you players heal in the so-called Real World. It takes time, and sometimes big wounds never heal, or leave permanent scars. If we lose an arm or a leg, we cannot grow it back, unlike you players. You can just drink a health vial.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked him.
“Five years.”
I tried not to think much about that, but I couldn’t stop my mouth from asking the next question.
“How was it before players started coming to this world?”
“Less populated.”
“Do only players come to this prison?”
“NPCs do too.”
“Do NPCs die?” They respawned as Chandra had told me, but I was bored and wanted to keep the conversation going. “Like did you guys die before players started coming?”
The soldier grimaced at me. An expression which made him very intimidating, especially with his scar.
“Shut up and get lost. Enough with your questions.”
I strolled back to my bed and threw myself onto it.
The soldier hit the bars of my cell with the hilt of his sword.
“NPCs will start dying from this year,” he
said.
The rest of the day I spent sleeping. It was the best thing I could do. I slept so much in fact that my health became 510/500, which I thought was interesting. Once awake, I began to do push ups. It was nice seeing my new bulging muscles in action.
But eventually I tired. And then I received the notification again.
Beware of hooded people.
Be sure of the identity of q hooded individual before you engage in any kind of interaction with them.
I scratched my chin. What was this entire thing with ‘beware of hooded people’? The one hooded person I was friends with —Grimguy— was a pretty nice dude. Either ways, I decided not to interact with random strangers in hoods in the future.
I noticed that there was a blue link at the bottom of the notification. I hadn’t noticed it during the first time I had received the notification.
Subscribe to the Prithvi Daily.
I clicked on the link. Immediately I was taken to a page where I had to fill in my details, such as my name, race, class etc. Then I checked the I-agree-to-the-Terms-and-Conditions box, below which there was a line saying that I would be charged 2 gold a day for staying subscribed to the newspaper and that I could opt out at any time. 2 gold a day was affordable.
Very soon I could enter the issue of that day. I cursed myself why I hadn’t subscribed to the e-newspaper earlier. I reckoned Grimguy and the others too had forgotten to tell me about its existence.
There were many headlines. Mostly of big quests that had been completed by players.
First Undead Player to Dinoland: It was about a player who had apparently travelled all the way to the land of the dinosaurs in the north. And he had been successful in coming back as well. Previously when players went to Dinoland, they returned only by dying and respawning at the place where they kept their birthstones. Dinoland was a dangerous place without a doubt. This player had therefore received an astounding one million gold.
I wished I could earn that much. I had heard that it was possible to an extent to transfer the money earned in the game world to the real world. I wondered how much one million Prithvi gold would translate to in real world money.
Princess Hamidi Rescued!: It was about a princess who lived alone in a castle that was surrounded by lava on all sides, and how a very brave player had succeeded in saving her despite failing five times earlier. The quest was one of those rare kinds that required players to be of a certain level to be able to accept it. The player had apparently kept trying despite the fact that every time he levelled down to one he needed to get back to the required level. The player had received ten million gold due to the quest being an exceptional one.
The other headlines were similar. There was also a section which listed the new quests that were available. I wondered if Rajahard had got to know about the giant priest we killed today through the newspaper. The quest was listed right there. There were a total of fifty quests available that day, and the sleeping giant was at the fortieth spot. I guessed the issue of the e-newspaper had been out since morning.
There was also a Give your suggestions to make Prithvi better section towards the end of the newspaper, with a box present where anybody could make a suggestion.
“Create a bookstore in Prithvi,” I typed and hit enter.
Dinner came after a few hours that I spent by rereading the newspaper, mostly staring at all the big numbers of gold some of the players had earned. Dinner consisted of tasteless boiled rice with potatoes. Thankfully, I had eaten well in the noon.
The next two days dragged slowly. The newspaper was a big relief. The times I was not reading the newspaper, I would exercise or just watch the Blood River and the boats lined along the banks. Other times I would talk with Grimguy or Rajahard. The latter thought still that I was faulty for not using paralysis on the man. Rajahard had changed so much after yesterday. He had become so serious. I told this to him. He agreed with me, and suddenly became a cheerful person again.
“Thanks for telling that, man,” Rajahard said, “you are the one in the prison and you aren’t even worried about it, and here I am angry with you. Next time we see that idiot, we’ll kill him again, all right? Nobody turns me into a grumpy man, eh?”
This was followed by a brief discussion about all the ways we could kill the perma player again. Perhaps we could behead him? Drown him in the Blood River? Rajahard began coming up with some really imaginative ways of killing the perma player, and I couldn’t help but start laughing. The guard stationed outside my cell gave me a frown, and I decided that it was enough. Rajahard logged out. Lovebird didn’t come online for the next two days at all. I just hoped she was all right.
Then finally the day of release came.
“Do not ever kill another player again,” I was told, while I recalled the various ways Rajahard had said he would use to kill the perma player. “The next time there will be more punishments than simply locking you in a cell.”
I had to walk for a short distance from the prison before I could get one of the horse carts, since the prison was at some distance from the road. The free air made me feel so much better. I wanted to dance. I enjoyed the feel of the sunlight on my skin. It was better to be out of a prison than to be in a prison, that was for sure.
It took me some time to reach the Ravana’s Inn. Nanda was absent from the bar, so I went directly upstairs. I decided to check on Grimguy. He had his door half open (perhaps he had forgotten to bolt it from the inside). He was sitting on the floor of the room. In front of him were what looked like the countless pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
“Hey, Grimguy,” I said. But he was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t hear me. I called him again. He turned, a look of irritation on his face at being disturbed, but seeing that it was me, the irritation went away and he smiled.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Solving a puzzle. Come in.”
I went and sat next to him on the floor. The individual pieces of the puzzle were really small, about half the size of a thumbnail. Grimguy had only solved a small portion of the puzzle, which seemed to be the image of a boat.
“You said you wanted to show me something,” I said to him.
“This is it,” Grimguy said, gesturing at the many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle littered on the floor. I raised a brow in disbelief. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Grimguy said. “It is an ancient puzzle of Kapilpura. I was lucky to find it. Nobody was interested in messing their head fixing the puzzle, so the quest has been open for apparently many weeks. Everyone is only interested in slaying monsters and doing big things. Anyway, how was your stay at the prison?”
“Pretty boring,” I replied. “I didn’t know there was an e-newspaper though, I only found out about it in the prison.”
“Ah, I totally forgot to tell you about it,” Grimguy said, slapping his forehead, “the newspaper publishes the big achievements made by players, and also lists some of the quests that are available.”
“I just wanted to ask you something,” I said.
“Go on.”
“Have you ever gone out of Kapilpura? I mean this world is pretty big, right?”
“Yes, I have been to a few other nearby cities,” Grimguy said, “but I really don’t know how to go very far... without the journey taking years. You know, like to the land of the elves or north to Dinoland. I don’t think you would want to go to Dinoland, though.”
“One guy apparently went to Dinoland and came back without dying,” I said.
“Yeah. You get good money for achievements like that. I think he found a portal or some other super-fast means of travel.”
“A portal?” I asked.
“Yeah, you can travel long distances using portals in no time,” Grimguy said, “but they are hidden, and I am sceptic they actually exist. You don’t see them in the map. There are rumours about the nearest portal being in the land of the Raks not far from the Blood River. I guess the few who have actually found it didn’t want to share it with
other players, considering it actually exists.”
For some minutes, I watched as Grimguy tried to solve the puzzle. But it was really tough. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of tiny puzzle pieces. It would take Grimguy quite a while to fully solve it.
Along the way from the prison, I had just had one thought in mind: To explore Prithvi more. I wanted to go outside Kapilpura, and see what it was like in the other towns and cities.
“Which is the nearest city or town to Kapilpura?” I asked Grimguy.
“Drapud,” Grimguy said. “It’s a small town, smaller than Kapilpura. You want to go there?”
“Was thinking of exploring this world more.”
“You can go there in one of the horse carts, or take an actual horse.”
I really liked the second option. I had never ridden a horse in my life, except on one occasion and that was more to take a picture of myself on a horse.
“Where do you get horses?”
“Govind’s place. It’s not far from here. Just ask around and you will be directed. A horse costs about 500 gold a day though, just keep in mind.”
“That’s costly,” I commented.
“It is. But that’s what it is. When do you want to go to Drapud?”
“Like… right now. Would that be possible?”
“Sure, the road to Drapud isn’t stone paved, and there are woods on the way. There are plenty of inns there in which you can stay for the night.”
All the while, I was noticing that Grimguy was having a really hard time solving the puzzle while still answering my questions. He had progressed very little ever since I had arrived. I reckoned it was better to leave him alone for today. I bid him bye and left the inn.
It wasn’t hard to find the stables. They were just a short distance away and I simply inquired shops and NPC pedestrians about its location (the players all looked too busy to be bothered with any question.)
I took a beautiful black mare for four days. I would use her to go to Drapud today, stay there for a day and explore it. Then the day after I might log out since it would be the sixth day since my trip to this world, and then on the following day after logging back in I would return to Kapilpura. I took my birthstone along, so that logging in and out would be more convenient.
Rohan's Calling Online Page 10