by Justin Coke
“Shit man,” Kid Twist said.
“Nah, it’s been coming, really. I mean, in a weird way I’m glad this happened. It’s like, it’s like ... it’s like I’m only playing because I don’t know what I’d do with all the time if I wasn’t, you know? Like it’s not even an addiction like it used to be, it’s just an enormous rut. I’m not sad. Christmas is right around the corner. My wife deserves a new car. I bet being part of the legendary Strumpet Stickup, I might be able to get her leather seats. I’ll see you around, maybe, but probably not.”
“Can I email you?” Kid Twist said.
“Yeah, sure,” Quartermain said.
“I’ll stay in touch too. I bet Tick Tock will too, as long as we don’t let her listen to the tape,” Mad Hatter said.
Quartermain gave a tired chuckle.
“I’m sorry, guys, I really didn’t mean that stuff. I was trying to make the little psycho feel better.”
“Good luck,” Hayes said, and with that Quartermain was gone.
“I’m going to shred Teabagz until his Wheaties feel bad for him,” Mad Hatter said.
“What?” Kid Twist said.
“The Wheaties will be like, whoa, Teabagz, you’re too shredded, that can’t be healthy. Shut up. I’m sad,” Mad Hatter said.
“Pour one out for another lost player. He was like the last guy I’ve known the whole time I played,” Kid Twist said. “Met him on day one. He was hogging all the Ambereye Tigers so I dueled him. He was a level higher than me, so that didn’t go well, but I didn’t really get levels then.”
“I met him running BattleRock Down. Shit. I think I was on my paladin? I haven’t played that guy in years.”
“End of an era, and the best rogue I’ve ever seen,” Kid Twist sad, suddenly far sadder than he should be. Quartermain was going to buy his wife a car and read more books; he wasn’t dying of cancer. But he knew that while they would email quite a bit at first, like every other Mundis friend they would grow more and more distant, until one day he’d be one of the 400 Facebook friends he hadn’t talked to in ten years, and Kid Twist would quietly, with no real regret because their adventures had shrunk and faded and were mostly forgotten, unfollow Quartermain. In the present, with the camaraderie fresh in his nose, that truth made him want to weep for the shortness of life and the difficulty of keeping friends.
Chapter Thirty-One
Eagle eye had revealed that no one had gone to the old vault in weeks. Cross referencing this information with the /who information they had gathered showed that most likely they had established a new vault somewhere nearby.
They spent a week tracking down the new vault; it was in a tiny cave in a cliff that rose above a rushing river. You had to climb down to get to it, and a thick oaken door stood at the entrance of the cave.
“I’ve been thinking,” Hayes said as they watched the door from the other side of the river.
“Yeah?” Mad Hatter said, bored.
“Yeah. I’m wondering how we haven’t been caught.”
“They’re relying on being hard to find rather than guards,” Mad Hatter said.
“No, not this. I mean, overall. Quartermain all but said that the guys who have been fucking with Teabagz are the ones who did the Strumpet Stickup. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out it was us; half of Sir Digby knows who Quartermain was working for.”
“All of Sir Digby knows it was us, but they’re so pissed off at the guild officers who kicked Quartermain out that the wouldn’t admit that the sky was blue if they thought Quartermain wouldn’t like them saying it. Those guys are pissed. Can’t blame them. The guild officers responsible are, like, I don’t even know why they don’t just quit. They are in the doghouse. And, you know how these internet things are.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“First comes the wave of total indignation. Anybody who points out, like, hey, every single person that lost their shit got their shit through continuous and blatant cheating, so who gives a shit if another cheater took their shit from them will get jumped.. That bright, pious, and stupid rage lasts like, maybe a week.”
“Okay,” Hayes said, recognizing that from the endless Twitter scandals caused by someone saying something stupid, and people flying into frothing rages as a result. While he knew it had happened three times a week, every week, for almost a decade, and as important as they seemed at the time, he could barely remember the details of any of them.
“Then comes the ‘hey, they had it coming’ counter-wave, and that lasts for a week. Third week, they find something new to argue about because it’s boring now. We are at the start of week two of the internet rage cycle. We keep our identity safe for three or four more days, then we can all write books using our real names about the great Strumpet Stickup. Those books won’t sell well because no one will care. But we could write them. Brocksamson and the other people who got fucked over, sure, they’re enemies for life, but what’s Mundis without some enemies?”
“You’re a very cynical man.”
“I have seen nothing on the internet to shake my deep conviction that the mob is not to be respected. Only feared.”
“So we won’t get caught?”
Hayes could feel Mad Hatter’s shrug through his headphones.
“I’m saying I think it’s too late to matter. Typhoon isn’t going to ban us unless we confess, so don’t confess. Problem solved. Worst case scenario, you ride it out until it becomes fun and nostalgic.”
“What happened to the staff?”
“Still there.”
“They really don’t know do they?”
“Willful ignorance built into the design of the world itself by an omniscient creator. Makes you wonder if the theologians missed something.”
“What?”
“There they are,” Mad Hatter said as Teabagz and his three minions started to climb down the ladder at the top of the cliff.
“We going tonight?”
“No,” Mad Hatter said. “We’re just seeing how paranoid they are today.”
If they had a rogue in play as backup security, the rogue didn’t expose themselves. After a few minutes Teabagz and his crew left the cave, staking out the ladder until the Shadow People arrived.
They climbed down the ladder and went inside.
Teabagz and his crew left. The Shadow People stayed inside.
“What the hell?” Mad Hatter said.
“What?”
“I think we just learned something,” Mad Hatter said.
“What?”
“Let me think about it for a bit, make sure I have it straight,” Mad Hatter said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
In the end, he hadn’t sent out a single application. He had a choice: go back to the telemarketing place, or ignore the problem for a month or two by tapping into the investment account.
Screaming inside, he filled out the application and waited. Rick called, and the next day he was sitting in a chair, helping people file disputes over bad eBay purchases and reporting missing cards. If it weren’t for the people it would have been an improvement over selling internet packages.
“Hello, welcome to Midlothian Bank. I’m James. How can I help you?”
“Hi, I was looking at getting a credit card with you guys. Could you read me the cardmember agreement?”
“It’s available online.”
“I don’t have an internet connection.”
“I could mail it to you.”
“I need to make a decision today. Please read it to me.”
He was trapped; he was required to read the whole ten-page document or he’d get in trouble.
He pulled it up.
“Your contract with us. This document, and any future changes to it, is your contract with us. We will refer to this document as your ‘Agreement’ or ‘Credit Card Agreement’; these terms also include any changes we may make to this document from time to time.
“We reserve the right to amend this Agreement at any time, by a
dding, deleting, or changing provisions of this Agreement. All amendments will comply with the applicable notice requirements of federal and North Carolina law that are in effect at that time. If an amendment gives you the opportunity to reject the change, and if you reject the change in the manner provided in such amendment, we may terminate your right to receive credit and may ask you to return all credit devices as a condition of your rejection. We may replace your card with another card at any time.” Hayes droned on and on, trying hard to hide his annoyance.
It was when he was reading about the various types of transactions when he realized that the guy was breathing way too hard.
“Are you mas—” Hayes froze up out of sheer embarrassment.
“Tell me about Balance Transfers,” the caller said, breathless and excited.
He put the caller on hold and furiously waved at Cynthia, his manager.
“What’s up?”
“This guy, he made me read the card member agreement. I think he’s masturbating.”
“Ooo. You pulled the Credit Line Wanker on day one. That sucks.”
“What do I do?”
“Do you know he’s jerking off or do you just suspect it?”
“He’s jerking off.”
“But, like, did you hear the foreskin flapping?”
“No!” Hayes said, gagging.
“Then you don’t know. Just ... finish the agreement. He usually finishes when you get to the choice of law provisions.”
“Does he do this to you?”
Cynthia shook her head. “He calls in until he gets a guy with a sexy voice. Take it as a compliment.”
“It’s disgusting.”
Cynthia shrugged. “Guess it’s cheaper than a phone sex line. He does this about once a week. If you refuse to read the agreement and he complains, I’ll have to write you up. Given your history here ... you wouldn’t be the first guy to lose his job over the Wanker.”
Hayes closed his eyes and took the Credit Line Wanker off of hold and dove back in.
Perhaps it was the interruption, but his breathing didn’t peak until the last paragraph about his rights in case he disagreed with the results of a disputed charge. A high, long grunt, and James couldn’t keep reading.
“Thank you, I’ll think about it. I have some concerns about the APR,” the Wanker said, and hung up. Hayes went to the bathroom and washed his hands until they were red, then wept in a stall. It wasn’t the wanker himself, however gross he was. It was that Hayes was thirty and had no choice about anything. No choice about his job, no choice about where he lived, no choice about anything.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“What did you figure out?” Hayes asked the next day as they leveled a couple of minor characters.
“Nothing, I guess,” Mad Hatter said.
“You sounded like you were pretty sure.”
“I was. But the more I thought about it the more I realized how many leaps I was making,” Mad Hatter said.
“Well, what was it?”
“I was suddenly convinced that Teabagz was selling information. The idea just appeared, complete and whole. He is selling links to something. Like, that guy pops open the vault. There’s a note—which you can cut and paste text into these notes, by the way, another feature that nobody ever uses, but you can—anyway, you pay Teabagz money via PayPal or bitcoin or whatever, he leaves a link for you pick up. A username and password, a FTP server. Something like that. Information on how to access more information. That’s what he’s selling. Mundis is just to launder the source of that information.”
“What? How’d you get that?”
“The Shadow Person didn’t leave. He didn’t go to the mailbox or the auction house. The good is not in Mundis. That’s the idea that popped into my head. The good is not in Mundis. I was sure of it. But it could be anything, you know? Maybe the Shadow Person got summoned out, cause why not? Maybe they just left him there as insurance if someone tries to pop the vault, something like that. I was way past the facts.”
“Makes sense though,” Hayes said.
“I can’t rule it out,” Mad Hatter said, “but I can’t claim to know it’s the right answer either.”
“But you still believe it.”
“Deep down, yes. Totally convinced.”
“Would that change anything? As far as what we’re doing?”
“Nothing,” Mad Hatter said. “Nothing, really.”
“Well, guess we’ll figure it out one way or the other soon.”
“Yeah, next week. In a day or two I’m going to pop the lock on the door and log my rogue out in the cave.”
“Won’t there be alarms and such?”
“Not like with the vault,” Mad Hatter said. “Doors don’t automatically warn the owner. I’ll just have to be extra stealthy. Now that Quartermain is gone, I’m the best rogue on the server. I’ll have to up my game.”
“I’m feeling lonely,” Hayes said.
“I know what you mean. Quarter gone, Tick Tock on some kind of Jesus trip,[106] Kid Twist still doing whatever the hell he’s been doing since forever.”[107]“Work hasn’t been going great,” Hayes said.
“What’s up?”
“The Credit Line Wanker.”
“Wha?” Mad Hatter said.
“Guy calls in all the time until he gets a guy. He makes them read the credit agreement while he jerks off. I’ve gotten him three times this week, and this is a slow week. I think he’s requesting me.”
Mad Hatter burst out laughing. Hayes didn’t know how long, because he took off his headphones.
Mad Hatter messaged him after way too long: Get back on Marconi. Hayes put his headphones back on.
“You do have a sexy voice.”
“Fuck off,” Hayes said.
“No, I mean, no homo and stuff, but if I were a desperately lonely gay guy who couldn’t afford $5.99 for the first minute ... I could see going for you.”
“Seriously, fuck off.”
“I’m trying to see the silver lining here.”
“Even with the wanker, at least I’m not trying to sell rural wifi.”
“Well that sounds like a good product.”
“It’s not bad at all, actually. But do you know the kind of people who answer their landlines in 2017?”
“Not the kind of people interested in broadband.”
“Not the kind of people interested in AOL.”
“So commissions were thin?”
“Basically non-existent. Or maybe I just sucked at it.”
“Well, I just Googled it. You could make like $30,000 working from home as a sex phone guy.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“That would be so gross,” Hayes said as he Googled “Phone Sex Operator Job.” He clicked on one of several sites dedicated to the phone sex industry.
“Aurally guiding men to orgasm is lucrative,” Mad Hatter said.
“Ewwwww.”
“Aurally. Aurally,” Mad Hatter said, long and slow.
“I think maybe you don’t realize that your accent makes everything you say sound like Jed Clampett on Novocain. If you think you’re conveying some subtle difference in pronunciation, you are failing.”
“Are you trying to say that you can’t tell the difference between aural stimulation and oral stimulation?”
“You sound like a Georgia possum’s garbage disposal, is what I’m saying.”[108]“Fucking Yankees,” Mad Hatter said, genuinely hurt. He’d always been sensitive about his accent.
“Want to do a dungeon?”
“Sure,” Mad Hatter said, all forgotten.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Hayes waited on his warlock, partied up with Mad Hatter’s rogue. He was Mad Hatter’s return ticket. He watched Mad Hatter’s feed through a private stream.
Mad Hatter logged into his rogue and the world appeared; he was in the far corner of a cave; on the opposite side was the vault, a square mass of green granite bolted together with massive pieces
of primitive ironmongery.
After a good long wait, while Mad Hatter’s rogue began to trim his toenails and throw them over his shoulder, Teabagz appeared.
Hayes smiled to see him wearing mostly blue armor, a downgrade of massive proportions. It was like seeing Manolo Blahnik wearing Sam’s Club jeans.
He knelt and opened the vault with a long scraping sound. He did something—it didn’t take long—and then he left. Mad Hatter moved forward slowly.
“Wish we’d set up Eagle Eye this time,” Mad Hatter said.
“Tick Tock has barely been on,” Hayes said.
“Lot of Thrill Kill Cultists letting real life shit get in the way of what matters,” Mad Hatter hissed as he crept forward, as if Teabagz might hear him if he spoke too loud.
The door was closed; no one was visible.
“Okay, going for it.”
Mad Hatter moved to the vault and brought up the script that would crack the vault.
It was then that Teabagz appeared, halfway through an ice bolt.
“Fuuuck,” Mad Hatter said and leapt forward, reaching dazzle range just as the ice bolt slammed into him, slowing him. His dazzle left Teabagz dazed and staggering like a drunk, while Mad Hatter creeped towards him. A bad totter put Teabagz in range, and Mad Hatter went to work with his knives, targeting nerve clusters and slicing arteries.
Teabagz recovered long enough to cast ice shield and bolt; the closed space did not work well for him in this fight; already disadvantaged in any fight with a rogue, being locked into a ring doubled the disadvantage. Still, he fought, and to Hayes’s eyes, surprisingly well.
Perhaps, if he wasn’t secretly fighting his arena partner who knew his tactics inside and out, he might have even won.
As it was, he died, and Mad Hatter was at 20% health.
“Those dickheads must be at the door, hurry,” Hayes said.
Mad Hatter charged the vault and fired up the script. Circles and lines flashed across the screen, too fast for Hayes to follow.