by G. R. Cooper
“That’s,” interrupted Snorri, “why you want to be very careful about making oaths. The one you made for us turned into an oath for the entire chain. If we’d failed at the last quest, we’d have failed them all, and we’d still have been bound by the oath made to the lower level quest. It wouldn’t matter that we’d accepted a much harder quest on top of that.”
“I’ll be careful in the future.”
“Did you get anything out of it?” asked Lauren.
Wulfgar nodded, “Yeah, but just plus one Personality.”
“Holy shit,” said Snorri, “that’s awesome!”
Wulfgar looked up at him, a little shocked.
“Really? It’s just an attribute point.”
“That’s just about the hardest thing to raise in the whole game,” countered Rydra. “It might not seem like much now, but once you start getting up in levels, it gets really rare that you have attribute points to spend, and every little bit counts.”
“You may not value Personality,” said Lauren, “and maybe a bump in Strength or Agility would have been more impactful, but you still got a really rare reward.”
“So,” asked Lauren as the group sat on the deck sharing dinner, “how are you enjoying your first week?
Wulfgar looked up at her and smiled.
“It’s really only been a few days, hasn’t it? I already feel like I know you guys. Like I know this world,” he shook his head, “but I realize I don’t. At least, not the world.”
“It’s a big place,” agreed Snorri, “and you’ve only really gotten to know one city in one kingdom. There’s a whole realm of stuff out there that could keep you busy for years, and that’s just within Clive’s kingdom. There are places and races out there that are only legends here. Elven cities. Dwarven mines. Other human civilizations.” He winked at Wulfgar, “We’ve got a lot of exploring to do.”
“And,” Wulfgar thought, “a huge area in which Shannon could be anywhere.”
Wulfgar nodded, “I’d like to do the exploring with you guys.” Snorri and Lauren smiled.
“I’m still pretty much a homebody,” said Rydra, “I mean, I enjoy the occasion local quest as much as the next guy, but I don’t see myself getting much out of Edonis. At least for a good while.”
Snorri frowned, “You mean, why explore and enjoy the world when you can just steal and do nothing?”
“Exactly.”
“What kind of life is that?”
“Relaxing,” Rydra sighed, “Look, I don’t expect you all to understand, but I was an old man. I’d spent decades working my ass off, forty hours a week. I had a good life, I enjoyed it and my family and friends, but I didn’t have much of a retirement. Too many health problems to enjoy myself. Now?” he shrugged, “Now I intend to enjoy myself.”
“And you take enjoyment out of pilfering NPC's?” sneered Snorri.
Rydra shrugged, “It’s a living. Besides,” he wagged a finger at Snorri, “I’m just taking what the system gives me, same as you. Just because you’re killing the NPC's before you pilfer them doesn’t make you any more or less honorable than me.”
“You don’t worry about that whole racial stereotype thing?”
“Oh, Jesus, son!” laughed Rydra, “Because I’m black I can’t be a thief without someone bringing that old bullshit into this world?” He shook his head, “Hell no, you don’t get to play that. Not here.” He pointed at Snorri, “Did you go around slaughtering people when you were alive? Aren’t you worried about that whole racial stereotype thing? The crazy white guy axe murderer?”
“I never, never, stole a thing in my life. I was an accountant for nigh on fifty years. When I got here, I did an accounting, an analysis of this world and what I wanted out of it. What I don’t want is to run all over the place like some teenager smelling his piss, high on his own testosterone and playing whack-a-mole against fantasy creatures. I want a nice, quiet life. I want to be left alone, to my thoughts. And I don’t want to have to rely on anyone else.”
“Put that all together,” he shrugged, “and the profession for me is thief. That’s it, that’s all there is to it.”
“Look,” said Snorri placatingly, “I don’t think less of you. I like you. I was just wondering, is all.”
“No worries, my man, no worries.”
“You don’t seem too upset,” said Lauren, “and I would imagine a man of your age, well, you must have gone through some tough times.”
Rydra nodded, “I did. But there’s one thing I learned a long, long time ago.” He looked back up to the group.
“If you can’t laugh at yourself, you don’t really have a sense of humor; you’re just an asshole who likes to laugh at other people.”
Wulfgar leaned back against the railing, watching the mountain range get larger. He thought about the totality of time ahead of him; an infinity, seemingly, unbounded by an end point. Once he had found Shannon, what then? Would he continue within this world? If so, then what? If not, then what? He looked to Rydra, whose hand rested on Bear’s neck, comforting the dog.
“What do you do with your time?” he asked.
Rydra looked up, “Me?”
Wulfgar nodded.
Rydra smiled, “You mean when I’m not out pilfering from NPCs?” he chucked, “I write.” He paused, “I spend a lot of time, in my bed, staring at the ceiling and writing.” He tapped his right temple, “I’ve got a lot written, up here.”
Wulfgar raised one eyebrow.
“I’ve got the book memorized. Perfect recall helps,” the little man said and paused for a moment in thought, “and I don’t suppose all of you have thought through the implications of perfect recall.”
Wulfgar shook his head, Lauren and Snorri looked to the thief.
“What,” he began, “defines our personality? Is it just our consciousness?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “And does our personality remain constant throughout our lives?”
Wulfgar shook his head.
“So, what drives changes in our personality?”
“Experience?” asked Lauren.
Rydra nodded, “And what’s another word for experience,” he tapped his head again, “up here.”
“Memory,” suggested Wulfgar.
“Exactly. So, if our grand benefactors,” he spread his arms wide, “can recreate our personality, they must also include our memories right?”
The other three nodded.
“And your memories are as they were before you made the transition, correct?”
They nodded again.
“So, if you have perfect recall, and a recording of your memories …?” he let the thought trail off.
“We should be able to remember, well, everything, right?” asked Wulfgar.
Rydra nodded, “That came to me one night as I was lying awake, trying to work out some of my old relationships. You three are probably too young,” he looked at Lauren, “or too new,” to Wulfgar, “or too stupid,” he winked at Snorri who bellowed in laughter, “to have the epiphany I did, but I was an old man when I died. My last years, well, I didn’t have any degenerative diseases, but my memory got bad. I couldn’t remember what I’d had for breakfast on any given day, or whether I’d had breakfast at all.”
He shrugged, “But once I got here, my recent years became unmuddled, clearer. I could work my way back through the streams of my memories, remembering what happened, what was said, everything really.”
“It’s not like,” he paused, thinking, “having an eidetic memory. I mean, you can’t ask me what the weather was like on April third, twenty-three years ago, but if I have a memory, however early, I can work my way backward and forward from that point. A blip, a single picture, can be unraveled to reveal the whole story. At least, from my point of view.”
“I suppose,” Rydra pondered, “that given the time,” he smiled, “which we all now have, we could lock ourselves in our rooms and think back through our entire lives. I might just do that one day. But for now,” he smiled, “I’m writing
my memoirs. The big story.”
“Why?” asked Snorri, “I mean, if you can remember everything, why write it down?”
“For one, as an old man, I learned not to take what I can do now for granted. I might not have the ability to do it later. Make hay while the sun shines, and all that,” he smiled at Snorri. “For another, I lived a pretty interesting life, if I do say so myself.” He chuckled, “I won’t give away anything now, though, I’ll just let you each have a copy once it’s done and published.”
“And then?” asked Wulfgar, “I mean, you don’t need an infinite amount of time to write about seventy or eighty years. What then?”
“I always,” said Rydra, “fancied myself a poet. I wasn’t very good,” he smiled ruefully, “by any means. But I figure I have a long, long time to hone that particular skill. So, for now, I’ll pick a few computer pockets to buy my wine, practice my craft and enjoy meeting people from all walks of life,” he smiled, “because, as far as I can tell, that’s what being a poet is all about.”
Wulfgar lay awake into the night, looking up at the familiar constellations. He began thinking on what Rydra had said, about memories and recall. Wulfgar - Duncan - had been an orphan for as long as he could remember. He had no memory of his parents and only occasional glimpses into his early life.
He thought back to what he presumed was his earliest memory.
He didn’t know how old he was, but he couldn’t have been more than three or so. He was in the back of a car. He could tell now, through his experiences as an adult, that it was an old Volkswagen bug. A beetle. From the trim around the window, the car was light blue. He was standing in the rear seat, the car unmoving. He tried to will himself to look around, to see if anyone else was in the car with him, but he could only remember, could only see, what he had seen - he could focus on anything that had been in his field of view at any given time, but no more.
In his memory, he moved forward and pressed his face against the glass. It felt cold on his skin and he could just see the glass in front of his mouth and nose fogging from his excited breath. His attention was drawn to a group of men, middle aged and older, who were standing in front of an open barn. They seemed happy, relaxed. One of them, a large knife in his hand, seemed to be leading the discussion. He pointed within the barn.
Another of the men unraveled a rope and threw one end over a beam that extended from the roof of the barn. He caught the rope and began tying it. He looped it once and then began circling the rest of the rope around where the loop met itself.
He was making a noose.
Duncan felt and heard the car door close behind him and heard an excited voice - a woman’s voice - in his ear.
“You shouldn’t be watching this, honey,” it said as a hand closed over his eyes.
Duncan struggled, shaking, but the woman was too strong. He couldn’t break free.
She pulled Duncan back into her chest, her hand still clasped over his eyes.
But two of her fingers had spread.
He could now see the men again.
Two of them grabbed one end of the rope and pulled the slack out of the line, leaving the loop, the noose, laying on the bare dirt in front of the barn door. The man with the knife nodded, and two more men came out of the barn, each holding a rope that was tied around the neck of a very large pig.
They moved the swine forward, until its rear legs were even with the noose, then the man with the knife bent over and lifted first one then other other of the pig’s hind legs and placed them inside of the noose. The man then straightened and patted the pig gently on the rear while nodding to the two men holding the taught end of the noosed rope.
The hog began to squeal as the noose tightened and lifted its legs off of the ground. The two men who’d led the pig out of the barn held the beast in place as it was lifted, first its rear then its forward legs. Once off of the ground, the two men removed their ropes from around the pigs neck and the hog was pulled higher.
That’s when the man with the knife deftly stepped in and quickly pulled what must have been a razor sharp blade across the hog’s throat.
Blood began to pour and another man stepped in and placed a large metal bucket underneath the flow.
Duncan remembered how enthralled, how enraptured, he’d been watching the pig being slaughtered, and how disappointed he’d been when the car started up and began to move forward. The woman pulled him in tighter and, after a moment, took her hand from his eyes.
He could see the back of a man’s head, sitting in the driver’s seat, as trees passed down either side of the car. Already exhausted, it didn’t take Duncan long to fall asleep in the woman’s arms.
Were these people in the car his parents? He remembered the man who’d cut the pig’s throat as his great-grandfather, but he never got a good look at his face.
Wulfgar blinked, seeing the stars wheel around his head as the Piraeus turned for a favorable wind. This was a new aspect of his life he would have to think about. How much of his life did he want to remember? He had gone through his entire adulthood never seeking out any answers; whatever the reasons that his parents, his family, had for giving him up, he was content in not knowing. He didn’t want to read through some dusty archives, trying to piece together the story from official records.
But this was different, wasn’t it?
This was remembering.
He just had to decide how much he wanted to remember, and when.
He fell asleep trying to decide if when was now.
Wulfgar took a long draw off of a pint of dark beer in the Gilded Pumpkin. He looked across the table, to Lauren who sat picking through a roasted chicken. She looked up at him and smiled.
“You look very dashing,” she smiled, laughing quietly.
“Doesn’t he just?” added Snorri.
The door to the inn opened and Rydra strode in, directly toward the table. He sat with a sigh and looked up at the rest of the group. When he got to Wulfgar, his face took on a shocked expression.
“What the hell is that?” he asked, nodding toward Wulfgar’s forehead, which was covered by the snarling face of a Canis Arcturus. The head, which molded itself, hat-like, onto his skull, trailed down into a short cape that dropped just below his shoulders.
“Cowl of the Wolf,” smiled Wulfgar. “It’s an artifact I found out in the Omegaverse. Got it when I killed an alpha Werewolf.” He shrugged, “I went and opened a bank account today, and when I opened my box this was already in it. I guess, since it was already in my character’s pack when I came through, it checked to make sure, I don’t know, that it wasn’t technological, and it just left it in my inventory.” He shrugged again, “Or, at least, in my bank vault.”
“Yeah,” said Rydra, “We all have the clothes we were wearing. They were in our vaults, but I’ve never heard of anyone having an item transfer. It looks dashing.”
“That’s what we were just saying,” laughed Lauren.
“It looks ridiculous,” said Wulfgar, taking it off and putting it into his pack. “In any case, though, Lauren was just saying how a high level tailor should be able to combine this with the Baen Si’s Cloak. Maybe even adding some fur, making the cloak itself kind of the lining of a head-to-toe fur piece. If we can get some fur with some additional properties, that would be great. That’s just what we were talking about when you got back.”
“As to that,” said Rydra, wiping beer foam from his top lip, “I just finished selling the lich’s staff and pricing out that cloak. The staff was rare. It was used for Necromancer spells. Evil stuff. There’s a market for it, but not a big one. My guy said he’d be able to sell it, eventually, so he gave me a good portion of its worth. He also priced out that cloak. Do you want to keep it?”
Wulfgar nodded.
“OK, then here’s your share of the staff and lich’s gold,” Rydra pushed two gold coins to Wulfgar and a larger stack to the other two.
Wulfgar pocketed the coins, doubling his fortune. The two would join their
partners in his bank vault the next day.
“Doesn’t exactly seem like a big haul, does it?” laughed Rydra, noting Wulfgar’s expression, “But, again, gold goes a long way here and it’ll add up after a while.”
“Besides,” he continued, “take it from an old accountant, economies in a world like this just aren’t like the ones in real life,” he held up finger quotes around real life, “you have money coming in, being created out of thin air, and without enough drains for the currency, you’d run into rapid inflation or hyperinflation and pretty soon money would be worth nothing at all. You’d have folks who’ve been here for a while with so much money they couldn’t spend it all and the prices of everything would rise so much that new players wouldn’t be able to afford anything. Currency at that point simply becomes valueless, you’d wind up with a barter economy after that - doable, but confusing for anyone who didn’t know the relative values of everything, every item.”
“What this world has, what it has to have, are a series of faucets that drain the currency as fast as it comes in. Now, back out in the outside Omegaverse, you had items that were insanely expensive and you had players who spent a lot of time arbitrage trading. Buying resources at a low price in one market, and selling high in another. That tended to spread the wealth around.”
Wulfgar nodded - that’s exactly what he’d done. The Cowl of the Wolf had given him the ability to negotiate a trade deal on the home planet of the Canis Arcturus. He’d made a fortune buying and selling in that hostile alien market, which was closed to all other players.
“But this,” added Rydra, “is a more focused, closed economy. I suppose you could buy items in Edonis and ship them off to other cities, but as far as I know, there’s no mechanism within the system to provide you with any sort of up to the minute prices. Functionally, we’re kind of on our own here. So, while everyone is off adventuring, basically creating copper, silver, and gold out of thin air, well, after a time that currency would start to pile up.”