“Yeah, I remember that,” I said.
She let loose her arrow.
It hit the neck of one of the pterodactyls. But the arrowhead wasn’t able to penetrate the thick skin of the flying reptile.
“Shoot at the Raks,” I told her.
She pulled her bowstring again.
Twang.
The arrow hit the eye of one of the pterodactyls. It suddenly came to a halt in mid-air and began trying to remove the arrow with its wings. Bad decision. All three of the Raks fell. The pterodactyl too went down.
“Actually, I was aiming at something else,” Lovebird said to me with a grin.
“I am impressed,” I said.
“I used to practise archery,” she said, “before the war that is.”
There were two more pterodactyls left. One had a single rider, while the other had two.
I swung my sword and electricity leapt from the tip and hit one of the Raks. Too bad, he didn’t fall down. Though his health did plummet significantly.
Lovebird fixed another arrow. She only had twoextra arrows remaining at the moment.
She let it go. Unfortunately, this time the arrow missed the left eye of one of the pterodactyls, passing by an inch from the eye without doing any damage.
Lovebird cursed. She pulled out her other arrow. This one hit the eye of one of the pterodactyls. The reptile abruptly stopped in mid-air, and though the Raks didn’t fall off, the pterodactyl descended down, too busy in trying to remove the arrow embedded in its eye. It was also definitely in a lot of pain and it gave up on the chase.
Now there was only one pterodactyl and one Rak remaining.
Lovebird released her last arrow. But she missed, and this time by a wide distance.
“Sorry,” she said to me with a crestfallen face.
“Sorry?” I laughed, “You downed two pterodactyls on your own! Be proud of yourself.”
“I think I can take care of this one,” Mastermind said. He made motions with his hand and a blast of fire went and hit the only remaining Rak, throwing him backwards so that he fell off the beast with a great yell.
But the pterodactyl was determined to keep chasing even without its masters.
I tried to hit it with my electricity, but the electricity seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the flying reptile. Mastermind tried his fire blast. But the fire could do nothing to the thick leather-like skin. Grimguy’s paralysis and fire spell didn’t work either.
And the pterodactyl closed in on us.
“Can’t you give up?” Mastermind yelled at it in his anger. “Your masters are long gone!”
The pterodactyl was flying only a few metres away from Pero. The beast tried to bite Pero several times, but failed. But it still kept trying. I swung my sword at the beast as it came nearer. I hit its face, missing its eye by an inch. It was my mistake.
The beast became infuriated.
It snapped its jaws at me. I evaded. In the process, I lost my hold on Pero. Before I knew it, I was falling. Lovebird let out a shriek, her eyes wide and her hands outstretched towards me.
The sky and the earth danced around me. My head began to spin. Pero might have been able to catch me, but with the blasted pterodactyl on his tail, it was just impossible for him.
I tried to steady myself to stop the spinning. But it was in vain. The only element that had control over me now was gravity. Darn it! Why did the game developers have to create gravity in this world? They could have certainly done without it.
After a while I became used to the spinning. One moment the sky would be below me, the next moment the ground would be above me. I closed my eyes. I accepted my fate. In a few minutes I would hit the ground and that would be the end of me.
It was all dense forest below. I could make out some particularly big trees despite the spinning. They were getting larger and larger.
In the last moments, I sent a final message to Lovebird.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
For a split-second I was slapped by a dozen tree branches. Next, I hit solid ground.
There was a moment of intense pain. Pain of the kind I had never really had the chance to face in real life. And then, the pain was gone. There was blackness all around me for some time. I could see my stats though. I was down to level one. Thankfully my gold was still there, and I was allowed to keep the Ravana sword as well.
My room at the Ravana inn appeared around me. I sighed as I placed my bag on the bed. The message stones were gone. I couldn’t contact my friends now. I felt like shit.
There was the log out button right there. I wanted to press it. Get out of the game. Why was I even struggling for a cause that didn’t really matter for me? It was the perma players after all that Death13 was after.
But no, I couldn’t do that. I shook my head. What was I thinking?
People were in danger and I needed to do everything I could to help them. I knew inwardly that it would be a kind of redemption to losing my brother to my gaming addiction.
But right now, to help anybody I really needed a message stone so that I could contact Mastermind and the others. I recalled that I had acquired the last message stone from a Rak. Did I have time to go on a hunt?
No, I had to find a different means. I had even lost my ability to cast the paralysis spell. If I walked into a Rak village all alone, it would be the same as offering myself for sacrifice. It would simply be a complete waste of time
Who could help me?
Rajahard and Ladyjane? But I needed to contact them, and that was quite impossible right now. Could Nanda, the innkeeper, help? I was not sure. He was an NPC. I didn’t think he had a lot of knowledge about how to acquire a message stone. He spent his entire day sitting at the bar or cooking in the kitchen.
Then who?
Wiseazz? Could he help? But he wasn’t even a good friend of mine. I had talked with him only on one occasion before. Would he even recognise me? Perhaps I could introduce myself as a friend of Rajahard’s to him?
But there were other questions still. What if he had already gone to Dinoland? And if he hadn’t already, would I be able to find him in the same inn where he had last thrown the party?
The least I could do was check at the inn. Doing something was better than doing nothing. Perhaps Wiseazz knew of a way to become a perma player without requiring to get to high levels? I had used my spell earlier on the player Raks and there was a possibility that they would be able to trace my location in the real world. My body hair stood on their ends as I caught a chill though it wasn’t cold at all. For all I knew, my survival might depend on becoming a perma player.
I exhaled, calming myself. I looked around the room. This was going to be okay, I told myself. I recalled Mastermind’s words: “There is always a way out.”
Just then I realised that the door of the inn was closed from the outside. As if the problems I had already were not enough. I had been the one to lock it from the outside when I last went out.
It took a lot of banging on the door to get the attention of someone walking in the corridor outside.
“Who’s in there?” Nanda’s voice asked.
“It’s me, Rohan. I died and respawned,” I said.
Nanda opened the door from the outside. I said ‘thanks’ to him in utter hurry, and then I ran downstairs. To my surprise, when I reached downstairs I saw the big Wiseazz sitting at a table talking to a woman, his pet Reptilio standing behind him with the expressionless face.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I needn’t cross half the town of Kapilpura to get to Wiseazz. I reckoned when you really wanted something everything in the universe did conspire to bring it to you. I couldn’t recall the book where I had read that, but it was a quote that had stayed with me.
I rushed to Wiseazz’s table. He looked up quizzically at me. He seemed to be having some important talk with the woman, who had blonde hair and was gaunt. Reptilio didn’t look very pleased either. But then, you could never really tell with the Dinoman.
“I am Rohan, remember me?” I said, and damn I could really feel the impatience in my own voice. I wished I could have talked normally, but I couldn’t help it.
“Rohan?” Wiseazz said.
“We talked the other day,” I said with some hope.
Wiseazz didn’t look like he remembered.
“Um, I am Rajahard’s friend,” I said to nudge Wiseazz’s memory. I was probably being rude, interrupting his conversation with the gaunt woman, and he wasn’t very happy for that.
“Ah, yes, I know Rajahard,” Wiseazz said. “You are his friend?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good for you.”
And Wiseazz turned towards the woman, ignoring me.
“So, the way to Dinoland—” he began, but I needed to get answers to my questions.
“I really wanted to ask you a few things,” I said to Wiseazz.
“I am having a really important talk, could you come a bit later?” Wiseazz said. He was trying hard to be good natured to me, but the exasperation in his voice was gleaming.
“Please,” I said, “this is also really important.”
“Look, you are taking her time,” Wiseazz said with a visible grimace, gesturing at the woman, “she is a busy lady.”
I looked at the lady. She didn’t look happy either at my interruption.
“Please, I don't want to disturb you, but this is really, really important,” I said to the two of them.
“It’s okay,” the woman said with a forced smile. She was an NPC going by the name of Romena. I got to know this by focussing at her. She seemed to be some kind of a travel expert. She had a health of 10,000, which meant that she was an extremely important NPC without a doubt. Romena turned to Wiseazz. “Let’s meet in the evening.”
And she stood up and left.
“Hey, please, don’t go,” Wiseazz said after her. But she had already reached the doorway.
Wiseazz bit his lip and looked my way.
“It was hard getting an appointment with her, you know,” he said. He wasn’t angry at me from the way he looked. He just seemed frustrated at his luck that I had to ruin his plans.
“I am sorry,” I said, “but I really wanted to know how to get a message stone.”
Wiseazz looked at me, as if I had asked him how one acquired a glass of water.
“You don’t know that?” he asked me.
“I know one can get it from Raks. But I died. And if I go alone on a hunt, it will be impossible for me to defeat Raks.”
“Ah, so you died?” Wiseazz said. I nodded. Suddenly his whole demeanour changed. And he became the merry Wiseazz that I had known him as.
“I see why you are desperate then,” he said with a smile, “have a seat.” He pointed to the chair Romena had been sitting a minute ago.
“I died once,” Wiseazz said, “not long after I first came to the game world. I was trying to kill a big monster with my friends, and then I died and suddenly lost touch with my friends. I didn’t know how to get a message stone quickly and the other players were not helping me much. So I understand your situation well.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling grateful to the big man. “So, how do we get a message stone?”
“Simple,” Wiseazz said with a smile, “just borrow it from another player. Sometimes players have two or more message stones. I would have given you one if I had an extra stone. Unfortunately, I don’t have one at the moment. I’ll just ask the people present in the inn if they have extra stones. But before that, do you want to ask me other questions?”
“Um, um,” I struggled, trying to remember the questions I had, now that Wiseazz was letting me ask whatever I wanted to, “Yes. Do you know how we can go perma… without, you know, attaining the higher levels?”
Wiseazz bit his lip.
“I am not sure about that. They are always changing the rules about going perma. Your best bet would be the bank. Just inquire there.”
“And where would the bank be?” I queried. I had lost my map as well after dying. All I had was the gold and the sword.
“Did you come to the party I threw?” Wiseazz asked, slightly raising his brow. “I feel like I saw you there. But I was too drunk.”
“Yes,” I said, “I did go, but I had to return fast. But it was a fun party.”
“So anything else you would like to ask me?” he said, leaning back in his chair. Reptilio began to massage Wiseazz’s head. The Dinoman’s eyes were fixed on me and I felt a bit uneasy because of his stare.
“Um, I heard a rumour that you have a lot of Karma,” I began.
Wiseazz smiled. He leaned towards me, a grin on his face.
“That’s not quite a rumour. But I am not transferring my Karma to you,” he let out a small chuckle.
“Well, I just wanted to know how one acquires Karma. You know, like a lot of it,” I said. I had put basically the same question to him the last time I spoke to him, but he had evaded the question then.
Wiseazz didn’t reply my question immediately. He seemed to observe me, as if trying to see through me if I was a good person and if I was deserving of the knowledge about how to acquire high levels of Karma.
“I haven’t told that to anyone in a long while,” Wiseazz said, “and I won’t to you either. But believe me, it’s better that way. What I will do is show you the way how to acquire big Karma. There are three points,” Wiseazz dropped his voice very much now, so that he was speaking in a whisper. Whatever he was going to say next was undoubtedly something of great importance and I too leaned towards him. “First, Karma points are transferrable. Second, you can make people do good deeds. Third, no harm in asking Karma from people who you helped gain Karma points, right?” Wiseazz grinned, like he had just given me the secret to the universe. I let the words sink into my brain. I revised the points in my head. I recalled that I had thought something similar while in the party.
“Thanks,” I said. I didn’t get all the points, but I knew now that the points were the key. A little bit of thinking should get me closer to the actual process of acquiring high levels of Karma. I was about to get up, leaving Wiseazz to himself, when the latter raised his finger.
He sent me a friend request.
I focussed on him and saw his stats
Wiseazz
Class: Multi-tasker
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Level: 300
Strength: 550
Health: 1989/2000
Mana: 1430
Intelligence: 458
Karma: 1235567
My jaws dropped.
“You have over one million—”
Wiseazz put a finger to his lip.
“Shhh, not so loud. And never tell about it to anyone. Do I have your word?”
“I promise I won’t ever tell about it to anyone. Thanks for your time. I am really grateful for all this.”
“Now, wait a minute, take your message stone along.”
Wiseazz stood up. He placed a hand on my shoulder. With him up, most of the people in the inn had their heads turned towards him.
“Anybody has an extra message stone?” he said in a booming voice, “My friend here needs it.”
One man raised his hand.
“I have a spare one,” he said. “Got five in total. I guess I can give him one if he wants it.” The man pulled out a message stone from his bag and he beckoned me. I went towards him. Just then there was a noise at the doorway, and three soldiers burst inside.
“Wait!” they shouted, their fingers pointed at me. I froze. What was going on? “You wait right there, don’t move.”
And before I knew it, the soldiers were over me, pinning me to the floor. I struggled, but I was just not powerful enough to throw away all of them.
“Let me go!” I said. “What have I done?”
The soldiers began to tie my wrists and legs together. The other people in the inn tried to get a bet
ter look of what was going on, crowding around us.
“What is this?” Wiseazz said in his loud voice. “He is a friend of mine. What has he done that you should treat him such?”
“He murdered two players, after torturing them repeated times,” one of the soldiers said.
That was a total lie!
I was about to protest, when the soldiers put a ball of paper into my mouth and tied a cloth around it, so that I couldn’t speak.
They lifted me up. I tried to speak, but all that came out was a muffled voice that even I didn’t understand.
“Why are you stopping him from speaking?” Wiseazz said.
“We are under orders,” one of the soldiers barked back at Wiseazz. “And if you talk too much, you’ll end up in the prison as well, so you better shut up.”
And the soldiers carried me out of the inn. Once out, they took me to a horse carriage. There was a big box towards the back of the carriage that had a single hole in it. The soldiers opened the box, threw me inside it and then closed the lid.
Claustrophobia seized me. I had been to the prison before. But the soldiers had treated me much better, because I had given myself up to them. On top of that, why had these soldiers lied to Wiseazz? I had not killed any players. Wait, I had killed some player Raks before dying. But that was in a different land where the human soldiers didn’t exercise any powers. Besides, wasn’t it a fact that humans and Raks were at war? And wasn’t it okay to kill them regardless of whether they were players or NPCs?
I could only look at the sky through the tiny hole. The wide blue sky was such a stark contrast to the box I was in. I had never felt this helpless in my life. Not even when I had stared Death13 in the eye.
The carriage came to a halt. I felt the box being lifted. The wide blue sky was replaced by the ceiling of a place inside which the soldiers had brought me. This place was dark from what I could see through the small hole. And I was pretty sure this wasn’t the prison.
I felt like being rushed down some steps and after a short while, the lid of the box was opened. A burly soldier lifted me up and threw me onto an uncomfortable chair and then tied ropes around me, fastening me to the chair, as if it was not enough to just tie my hands and feet.
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