“You don’t have a better reason for going perma?” he asked me. “Normally people go perma if they are terminally ill or are old or something like that.”
“The reason I have provided won’t do?” I asked. Would the form not be accepted? I was suddenly afraid.
“No, it’ll do. But I was just saying.”
The man put the form in a drawer and thenhanded me a card containing my name. He pointed at a door which had two concentric circles painted on it. I reckoned it was some kind of a symbol.
“Go there, and hand the card to the person sitting inside the room. He’ll make a permanent player out of you.”
I turned around.
The man suddenly slapped his forehead.
“Wait! Wait!” he said. “I am really losing my memory, aren’t I? I forgot to ask you the money, and I need to give you a receipt as well.”
“So how much money should I give you?” I asked, thinking it was quite weird on the part of the developers to create NPCs who forgot things. Realism was important, but sometimes it wasn’t required.
“Five thousand gold,” the man said. I was very thankful that I still had the gold despite my double deaths. I gave him the money and he printed me a receipt.
“Okay, now you can go and get turned into perma,” the man said with a smile.
Inside the room the door to which had the symbol of the concentric circles, there was a lean balding man. He was dressed in a lab cloth and there was a capsule in the room. I handed him the card.
“Get inside the capsule,” he told me, as he opened the lid for me. I lay down in the capsule. I had a déjà vu feeling as I felt like I was in my capsule in the real world. He closed the lid. I heard the sound of a button being pressed and the next moment the inside of the capsule became very bright with a blue light. The blue light lasted for about five seconds and then the man opened the lid.
“And that’s how you go perma,” the man told me, flashing teeth that had wide gaps in between.
“Is that it? Am I a perma player now?” I asked, ecstatic.
“You are,” the man said. “Why don’t you try selecting the log out button?”
I was a bit fearful as I clicked on the log out button. I expected myself to wake up in the real world. Nothing such happened. I wanted to jump about, though at the same time I was thinking of Dev and my other friends back in the real world. I thought of all my belongings in the real world. What would happen to them? I didn’t know. But I had a job to do in the game world: to save the perma players, and that was what I decided to focus on.
I thanked the man and went out of the room. Suddenly a message popped up.
Everybody. Please stay calm under all circumstances. Please do not panic.
The developers of Prithvi.
Apparently everybody present in the room had received the message, both players and even the NPCs. Immediately a murmur started.
And just then, one of the guards rushed in.
“There is a hooded man in the streets outside terrorising everyone!” he cried.
A hooded man?
That explained the message.
And it also explained why the people had been running around earlier.
The people inside the bank had been at bliss, totally cut off from the pandemonium outside. On the plus side I was a perma player now. On the minus side, if Death13attacked me I would be forever deleted. The tattoo onmy back won’t help me. I might have escaped being traced in the real world, but there was a possibility that a worse fate awaited me.
The message had asked everyone to be calm. The guard had created the spark of panic, and now everyone began to rush outside. I couldn’t see the point at all. Wasn’t the bank safer? Death13 was in the streets outside. They should have remained in.
But I wasn’t any smarter, I followed the crowd outside.
And there I saw him. Death13 was hovering at least ten metres above the ground, shooting electricity randomly and sucking Karma, destroying the perma players. There was so much shoving and pushing going on that I suddenly found myself in the middle of the street. And there was Death13 just a hundred metres away from me. I became paralysed with fear.
Death13 pointed his hand towards a person who was standing just a few metres away from me. He was not a perma player. But I had a sudden rush of adrenaline and the hero in me awakened. I leapt, pushing the man out of the way, so that the bolt of electricity from Death13’s hand missed the man and hit the ground instead. I pulled the man to a safer place behind a nearby building, as Death13 turned to another prey instead.
“Thanks,” the man gasped, taking in a lungful of air. “Why is everyone fleeing? And who is that hooded figure?”
“He is Death13,” I said darkly.
“Death13?”
“Yes. And you should rather log out right now.”
The man nodded.
He let out a shriek.
“I can’t log out! Shit!”
“What?” I said. But that couldn’t be possible, right?
“Try again,” I said, observing the man as a fit of terror seemed to seize him.
“I can’t log out!” he said again, “Shit, why is this happening? I had to go to an important meeting in a few hours!”
I suddenly realised what was happening. I recalled what Killerman had said. So this was what was worse than Death13 just destroying perma players. Somehow the Kartoshi gang had made it impossible for people to log out. Now they can destroy all players, both perma and non-perma. It was the worst case scenario possible. Something right out of a nightmare.
So this was the reason why Death13 had attained the guts to come out in the open from the forests in between cities and towns. I lamented why I had turned myself into a perma player. Had I just wasted 5000 gold? What had been the point? I would have gotten stuck in the game world anyway. It was the same as going perma.
The man meanwhile began to sob. There was no way I could really help him at the moment, so I didn’t bother to give him any consolation. Just then I sighted Wiseazz in the distance. He seemed to have thought Death13 was some unique quest and he was throwing fire at the hooded man. Death13 got agitated and began throwing electricity at Wiseazz.
As Wiseazz was preparing to send more fire at Death13, the latter threw a bolt of electricity. Wiseazz tried to evade. But he was slow this time. The electricity struck him. My heart stopped.
Surprisingly, Wiseazz didn’t immediately disintegrate as most of the other players struck by Death13 had. I focussed at Wiseazz and saw that he was rapidly losing Karma. It was currently at 880000 and going down slowly. It looked like he was staying alive at the loss of Karma. Somehow Wiseazz was able to get behind a building, so that the electricity from Death13 was hindered.
Wiseazz seemed to have realised that he had lost much hard-earned Karma and this time he didn’t retaliate at Death13. Instead he ran back the other way. At a point Reptilio joined Wiseazz and the two of them disappeared round a corner.
I went to the streets. Death13 was a short distance away, his back turned at me, so I felt relatively safe.
Go to the Rak village, get to the portal, a voice ordered inside my head.
I decided to heed that voice. It was the best thing I could do now. I must reunite with Mastermind and the others at all cost.
“Look there!” I heard a familiar voice, “He’s the one, isn’t he?”
It was Mayester. Some of the other members of the Kartoshi gang were also with him, including Killerman. Mayester was pointing directly at me. Luckily, they were on the other side of the street.
I ran at full speed now, not looking back once, though I was sure that they were hot on my tail.
“You have nowhere to go!” I heard Mayester cry.
“You will forever be deleted!” Killerman said. “You have gone perma, but if you want your real body to be disposed with honour, slow down.”
They were all shooting spells at me. But they didn’t manage to hit me. As I ran, around me people became paralys
ed or were hit by flames. Some even burst into a thousand pieces. This only made me more fearful and I ran at breakneck speed. At the same time I was sure that the gang members would throw my real world body in a river or do something similar. It sucked, but I couldn’t do anything for my body that had served me so long.
Running like mad in half-an-hour I left the town of Kapilpura behind me, and raced towards the bank of the blood river. I would have taken a carriage had I got one. But the carriage drivers were more interested in saving their own skins than in saving me frommeKillerman and the others.
Once I was at the river, I paid one of the ferry men to get me across. It was only when I had reached the other bank that I saw the gang members reaching the human side of the river.
I remembered well the route to the village of the Raks that had the portal, and ran in the direction as fast as possible.
It took me an hourand a half to reach the Rak village and by that time the sun had set. Once, along the way, a pterodactyl scooped low in a bid to catch me. Thankfully there were many trees at that spot and it gave up and went its way. I for one was more afraid of the gang members than the pterodactyl.
Humabel and the other Rak guards were at the gate of the village.
“So you have come to use the portal again?” Humabel said aloud.
“Yes,” I said, taking a quick glance behind. I didn’t know if I was being chased, but I still felt like the gang members were in my pursuit. There was however a possibility that they might have confused their way inthe forest.
Humabel and the other Raks were actually looking quite friendly. Well, if you give a lot of gold to Raks they become friendly. No big thing, right?
“You seem worried,” Humabel said to me.
“Some folks were giving me chase, I don’t know if lost them,” I said.
“Folks? You mean Raks?”
“Humans, unfortunately,” I said.
“Oh, by the way, you didn’t come back through the portal the last time. How did you return?”
“I died,” I said.
“That is not good,” Humabel said, trying to sound like he was sad for me though I knew that all he wanted was my gold. “You work so hard to get to the higher levels and then you die and you are back to level one. It’s better to be an NPC. If we die, we respawn without losing any levels, well most of us do anyway.”
“I am not quite sure that will be so anymore,” I said, recalling that Death13 had attacked the Raks the other night when Daddy1 was forever deleted.
“What do you mean?” Humabel said, curiosity dripping from his voice.
“Never mind. You will come to know about it soon.”
“Hmm, I hope you at least know the name of the place you want to go this time?”
I stressed my memory. Yes, I knew it well.
“Yup. You don’t have to strangle me.”
“Too bad, I could have done with some extra gold. Didn’t find any way to wipe memory either.”
We went to the circle of stones and then Humabel activated the portal. Once all the rays were meeting in the centre, he turned to me.
“So where are you going this time?” he asked.
“Dhagotistil,” I said.
“Ah, there were some other players who went to the same place yesterday,” Humabel said, “anyway, that would cost you 10,000 gold.”
Portal travel was not cheap. At this rate, I would be a beggar soon. With much reluctance I gave Humabel the gold, who told me to come to use the portal again in the future.
I went to the centre of the circle of the stone slabs where the light rays met. I repeated “Dhagotistil” three times. The earth pulled me and this time I wasn’t afraid at all, having experienced the process earlier.
In a few moments I found myself in a different part of the world of Prithvi. There were many tents all around me. In the distance there was what looked like a great statue of a Rak who had his eyes closed. It was at least a hundred feet in height.
It was a statue, right? I hoped so at least. If it wasn’t then… well, I wouldn’t wake it up even if someone offered me a million gold.
There were many people moving about. Not far away I spotted a raised platform, that looked like some kind of a wrestling ring, ropes marking its boundaries. There was nobody there presently though.
“Great,” I muttered to myself, “did Mastermind and the others come here?”
That would have been the rational thing for them to do. Unless they were downed by the pterodactyl which had caused me to fall from Pero’s back.
I wished there was a message stone with me.
“Um, sir,” I said to a man with a turban who was passing me. He had a pointed beard and a moustache. He was a player, a wizard going by the name of Babaguy.
He turned to me. There was something very stern about his eyes. Had I not been desperate I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to him.
“What do you want?” he asked coldly.
“Um, do you have a spare message stone,” I said in a tiny voice that sounded like a squeak.
Babaguy beganto search hisbag. He took out a message stone and gave it to me.
“Here, have it,” he said, “it’s the only one I have, but I don’t require it and it was just taking space in my bag.”
“You don’t require it?” I said, looking at the message stone.
“I have no friends,” Babaguy said. Perhaps it was just that his face was made that way, but a permanent scowl seemed to hang on his face which bothered me a lot. “Anyway, I will be on my way.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, having a surreal feeling as Babaguy walked away. I was surely lucky.
I quickly put the message stone in my bag. I now had the ability to message all my friends and I could barely believe it.
The first oneI messaged was Mastermind.
“Hey, where are you?” I asked.
“At the place of the tournament of Death in Dhagotistil,” he replied after a moment. “Where are you?”
“Same place. Just reached here a few moments back.”
“Good, I expected you to come. But there have been a few problems with us. With Lovebird specially.”
“Problems? With Lovebird?” Did she also fall from Pero’s back or something similar happened to her?
“Not something of that kind. Come to us first. You see the giant sleeping Rak?”
“Yes,” I said, while my mind began to wonder what must have happened to Lovebird, my heart beating faster. Also, did Mastermind say “sleeping giant”? So that wasn’t a statue?
“That big statue isn’t a statue?” I asked in my astonishment.
“No. It isn’t. First come to us. Search for us around the giant Rak. The three of us are together.”
I went towards the sleeping giant. Many other people present were also marvelling at it. Just going near it made a chill run down my spine.
It took me a handful of minutes, but before long, I found the three of them. I ran to them once I saw them. Grimguy and Mastermind were standing, while Lovebird was sitting on the grass, her face in her hands. Grimguy had a hand on her shoulder. Both Mastermind and Grimguy looked quite upset though they tried to smile at me.
“So you made it, eh?” Grimguy said.
“What happened to her?” I asked them. Lovebird was sobbing.
“She can’t log out,” Mastermind explained. Only now did Lovebird look up at me. She stood up and wasted no time in hugging me tight.
“I can’t log out,” she cried.
I put my arms around her and kissed her forehead trying to give her some consolation. I had never thought of her when I had come to know that players could no longer log out. I remembered that I had been the one who had called her on the quest to get the artefacts and to defeat Death13. Now she won’t be able to return to the real world. She had a brother to look after on top of that. I felt so guilty. I wanted to run away from her. I felt like a really selfish brat.
“It’s all the doings of the Kartoshi gang,” I said, not
just to Lovebird, but also to Grimguy and Mastermind.
“Now I see their plan,” Mastermind said. “Funny, they never told me about doing this. But then, I had been hired by them to create the junk code. They had no real reason to share the entire plan with me.”
“So what happened after you died?” Grimguy asked me. “We tried to save you and Mastermind made his pet dive to catch you. But you already hit the ground. And then there was the other pterodactyl chasing us. We had a tough time getting rid of it.”
“I am glad that you could at least make it backto us,” Lovebird said, breaking the embrace and running a hand down my face. I rubbedthe tears from her cheeks. “Do not cry. I am responsible for all that has happened to you. If I hadn’t called you yesterday to the Ruins of Drabund, you wouldn’t have become interested in the quest. And you would have been able to stay out of the game before they made it impossible for players to log out.”
Looking around the place, I thought it was funny that none of the players here seemed worried that they couldn’t log out. I reckoned they were so excited about the tournament that they hadn’t tired selecting the log out button. Also, most of the people here seemed to be perma players. So it didn’t really matter to them that the other players were also stuck in the game world.
Lovebird smiled at me with a light shake of her head.
“You are not faulty, Rohan,” she told me in her sweet voice, “it was my decision to go to Drabund and then to accompany you guys in this quest. You didn’t force me or anything. Besides, that they made it impossible for people to log out doesn’t mean that it has become impossible to log in. I am sure had I logged in only now, I would have become stuck in the game as I already have. I only wish I had never played the game in the first place. I found a free capsule and I couldn’t resist playing it. If there is anybody’s fault, it’s mine.” A tear rolled down her cheek, but I couldn’t help but think about the free capsule she had spoken about.
“Lovebird,” I said to her, “by any means, you are not being paid to play this game, are you? How did you get the free capsule?”
Perma-Death Online: A LitRPG adventure: Book 2 Page 12