More Than a Game

by Andrey Vasilyev

  Players could all use the game messaging system, but there were a few occasions when you needed a mailbox. For example, if you wanted to challenge someone to a duel. Clans declared war on each other by mail if they absolutely hated each other. Of course, they just sent couriers to each other with a memorandum of hostilities when they disliked but still respected each other. Mailboxes were also important when you wanted to borrow something, as they were considered strong proof by the developers in their role as arbiters.

  All that aside, I walked over and activated the mailbox in the square.

  Would you like to send a letter?

  No, of course not. Why else would I be here? I entered my name in the sender window, and where it asked for the recipient, I entered “Gray Witch.” Then I attached the part of my conversation with Euiikh where he announced what he’d like to do to the Hounds of Death and the Gray Witch in particular. Everything else, and especially the mention of the Thunderbirds and appearance of Rone and Dorn, I initially wanted to take out. Why did the Hounds need to know any of that? After giving that a bit more thought, however, I settled on a better course of action.

  Dear Gray Witch,

  Today I witnessed an unseemly scene in which a player, in full realization of the consequences of his actions, insulted one of Fayroll’s most powerful and worthy clans: the Hounds of Death. Needless to say, simply being a member is a dream shared by the rest of the players in the game, which makes his insult to you, its leader, all the more regrettable. Certainly, the offender was immediately destroyed by myself and my friends from the Thunderbirds clan, as we could not leave such a gesture unpunished given the friendly relationship our clans have. We cannot, however, be sure that he will not continue to profane the name of your clan, one of the strongest and most respected in Fayroll. As proof, I am attaching a video I recorded.

  With sincere respect and deference,

  Hagen, warrior, Thunderbird volunteer

  Something like that. Sure, I may have gone a bit overboard by at least partly acting on behalf of the clan. On the other hand, it only benefited. If all else failed, I would just say I was in shock after the day’s events.

  I sent the letter and looked up at the sky to see that the day was long past half gone. If was time to head back to the real world. Elvira wanted to take me somewhere that night, and I needed to get some food and work on an idea that had fully formed in my mind. Also, I needed to write up a story. Mammoth wasn’t the patient type.

  Chapter Twelve

  Between Before and After

  I mulled over everything while I ate, trying to figure out if I should go ahead with my plan. It could very well rile up quite a few players, but it would give me a chance to see how the gaming world would react to a strong irritant. On the one hand, it was all a bit frightening. The other players wouldn’t be able to find me, though the developers could. Although to be fair, I wasn’t impeding game progress for anyone. On the other, morbid fascination, provocations, and hullabaloos in the information sphere were my bread and butter. Without all that, I’d be stuck running around waving weapons just like everyone else in the game. Either that or, God help me, I’d have to go running off to who knows where in the east looking for material.

  “Oh, whatever.” I shrugged my shoulders. “What are they going to do, kill me? It’s just a bunch of bearded programmers—not quite special forces.”

  I sat down and, before I did anything else, plugged my USB modem into my computer and unhooked the internet cable. Then I launched a program I had to generate a dynamic IP address.

  “You can’t be too careful” was my motto when it came to making up stories online. I doubted anyone would try to hack me, but still. God helps those who help themselves…and orcs kill those who don’t.

  I logged onto the game site, registered as Buzdigan, headed over to the forum, clicked on the “quests” section, and then went to the “Epic and hidden quests” subsection. A second later, I had created a new topic entitled “Bringing back the gods: nonsense or a real quest?”

  “I haven’t been playing long, but I’m making some progress—Level 23 already. The game’s cool, everything looks great, you fight but have to use your brain, too, and the quests are fun. The PKers are a pain, but that’s always true. I have a question about quests, though. I read on the forums that there are hidden and epic quests and that they give you the best stuff. It’s hard to get them, though. Anyway, I was chatting with some guy recently. A few friends from college and I were at a bar after class on Friday, and he came with one of them. He just started playing Fayroll, too, his level’s about the same as mine, but he said that he just got a hidden quest. It was a complete accident that happened while he was saving or killing something for some other quest. Long story short, he’s supposed to help some NPCs and might get something in return from the gods that left.

  “So my question: Is that real? Does that happen? If it is real, can you do the quest in a group? What do you get for it? Someone has to have come across it at some point, so speak up!”

  I reread what I thought was a great example of charming, not-exactly-articulate writing that could plausibly be written by your average Joe—a mix of truth and lies. There was no point in thinking up some fake quest when I knew about a real one, after all. Still, it wasn’t worth unveiling the whole truth. I wondered what kind of reaction it would get and clicked the send button.

  Then I called Elvira and found out that we were scheduled to go to some exhibit for new artists that had supposedly discovered a new style of art. Basically, a bunch of long-haired women standing around in scarves smoking their slender little cigarettes. Who knows what they actually drew? Maybe an eye, maybe somebody’s ass, but it was art. New age! Gag. Still, I had to go, since Elvira liked all that crap. I’d sit through it, she’d make me some food later, and at least that way, I wouldn’t be stuck eating pelmeni yet again.

  The next two hours were spent hard at work on my article, and I was nearly done when I had to start getting ready. I headed over to the wardrobe and thought for a while about what to wear. The previous occasion had been a failure. Elvira had dragged me to yet another exhibit, and I figured it would just be a bunch of half-crazed avant-garde men in their eyeliner standing around with flat-chested, pimply-faced dames squawking on about how, “It’s genius! Genius, I tell you!”

  So I dressed accordingly: jeans and a t-shirt featuring the likeness of a popular TV show doctor wagging his finger above a caption that read, “In this hospital, I’m king and god!” It was a cool shirt the girls from advertising gave me for my birthday. As it so happens, they were the only decent people in our snake pit.

  How was I supposed to know that it wasn’t a modern art exhibit? Or that it was actually a showing of pieces from the collections of different oligarchs? The “Little Dutchmen,” Polenov, Aivazovsky, Serov… There was even some guy there from the Ministry of Culture, judging by the dejected way he was taking the whole picture in. It was much more impressive than what they have at Tretyakov Gallery… Although to be fair, he may have just been shocked by the fact that what he was seeing was hanging there rather than in Tretyakov Gallery.

  The people in attendance were dressed accordingly—ladies in their pearls and furs hanging on the arms of their walking wallets, B-list sluts with expensive phones in one hand and tiny terriers in the other, equally B-list non-traditional pairs (at least I got something right), celebrities, a fellow journalist flagging down waiters with canape?, politicians, and all dressed to the nines. Dinner jackets, Burberry Prorsum and Frankie Morello suits, evening gowns… Elvira was in something decked out in crystals, too, and next to her was me with the doctor on my t-shirt. We had people staring at us all night—at me and the doctor with surprise, at Elvira with sympathy. I couldn’t care less, but she was of a somewhat different opinion.

  She looked like she wanted to cut me when we got home. I stayed awake all night I was so worried she might try to smother me in my sleep. Don’t think I’m joking—she’s Ta
tar, and they’re crazy.

  Eventually, I decided to make sure my bases were covered and went with a linen suit that was as comfortable as it was universal. All set, I left for Krymsky Val[9], where the event was being held.

  The exhibit wasn’t worth describing except to say that I could have done better. Just give me a canvas and a few tubes of paint, as apparently squeezing the paint out of them is now an actual skill. Still, quite a few obviously well-off men and women came to see the artwork and even buy some for themselves. I walked behind Elvira for a bit as she darted around the gallery before I decided to sit down on a bench in a corner behind a palm tree. It was a nice little spot that was quiet and peaceful. I even began to doze off as I listened to the music softly wafting down from the ceiling. However, just as I started to drift away, a couple of men stopped on the other side of the palm. I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

  “…called in all the veterans.”

  “Because of one thread? Some kid obviously wrote it, or maybe it’s just there to throw people off the track.”

  “But why? What track would they be trying to throw people off of? Information wars always have a goal, whether they’re trying to attract people or weaken the opposition. But if you don’t stand to gain anything, there’s no reason whatsoever to do it! This isn’t your first time around the block. You should know this doesn’t sound like your usual provocation.”

  “I don’t know…maybe just an attention grab…laying out a position…”

  “For a Level 23 player? Besides, it’s obviously someone still in school, and the only way they try to grab attention is by screwing the players around them. We both have to deal with that constantly. No, this looks real. Some dumb kid found an equally dumb source that stumbled over something he didn’t understand. And now, they’re walking around the game with an incredibly rare quest. Let’s just hope they don’t get tired of it and give up.”

  “I leaned on my people to try to get them to give me the thread author’s IP address, but you know how Radeon is with confidentiality. It’s no State Duma[10] in there—they’re serious.”

  “If all else fails, we can find some hackers to break into the server.”

  “That’s daring, but it’s stupid, too. They’ll find your hackers; you know that as well as I do. Then we’ll have to send you-know-who money, and he’ll…”

  The pair walked away from my palm and left me wide awake.

  Four-to-one they were talking about me, I thought. That’s crazy—a couple of important guys like that playing games.

  I broke cover from behind the palm to see that they had stepped away toward a corner and were talking on their phones. They weren’t the only ones, as a lot of the men in the room appeared to be getting ready to leave despite the frustration written on their dates’ faces.

  No, I thought, that has to be a coincidence. There can’t be so many people playing the game, and especially old rich guys.

  Elvira walked over.

  “There you are! I was about to call missing persons. Let’s go, everyone’s about to leave.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure.” She shrugged her dark, bare shoulders, her heavy chest swinging under the thin fabric of her dress. “A lot of people are talking about some kind of quest, something unique or whatever. Sounds like an adventure game or flash mob of some sort.”

  “Yeah, probably.” I may have miscalculated somehow, but something somewhere told me that things were definitely about to get interesting.

  The first thing I did when we got to my apartment was turn on my computer. I logged into my Buzdigan account and found exactly what I’d suspected. I’d gotten much more than I dreamed possible. I had hoped to generate a little buzz, maybe get people talking a bit, and see how the community reacted to something out of the ordinary. Maybe I’d even participate.

  I participated all right. In the four and a half hours that had elapsed since I started the thread, it had grown to eighty pages. It wasn’t even a thread anymore; it was now a new section entitled “Legacy of the Departed Gods.” There were seven threads in it, and the comments covered the gamut. Some were happy to hear the news, others thought it was a fake, and still others asked me to get in touch with them. Nobody seemed to remember that I wasn’t the one with the quest.

  My forum inbox was also packed with more than fifty messages. Reading the first few subjects didn’t make me feel any better: “I’ll buy your information. Good money.” “You’ll tell me what’s going on if you know what’s good for you.” “Welcome to the Great Fayroll Army!”

  I let out a stunned sigh—I may have been in over my head. To be more specific, it appeared I’d underestimated how interested the gaming community would be in what the gods left behind.

  The screen refreshed, and a new message appeared: “The Thunderbirds invite you to join their ranks.” My clan was behind the curve. Here they were taking their good old time, and the Great Fayroll Army was trying to poach me.

  “Hey, Nikiforov.” Elvira’s voice rang out from behind me as annoyed as ever. “You care more about that computer than you do me?”

  “You know, El, you’re great, but sometimes you say the most ridiculous things.”

  “Then turn off your idiot box and let’s go eat. We can have a little to drink, too—it’s been a long day.”

  Well, I thought, I’ll tackle this tomorrow with a hangover.

  Elvira’s “a little” was less than convincing.

  The next morning was dreary with a gray sky. I had the hangover I’d anticipated, as well—“a little” turned into “a little more,” which gave way to “one more drink.” The whole thing was complicated by listening to her nag as she looked for one of her stockings. “You animal, you hid it somewhere! Another one of your fetishes.” Then it was her phone: “You were reading my texts? How dare you!” That reminded me. I needed to change the password on my phone. God help me if she were to find it. She’d kill Lena from advertising, and me, too. Lena would die quickly, but she’d probably keep me around for a while. She’s refined that way. Then she was looking for her keys…which were found where? Obviously, in her purse (“Whatever, you mixed everything up again like you always do.”) Finally, we finished with a goodbye kiss and, “I’ll call you. Don’t you dare not pick up the phone.”

  I didn’t have the least desire to smoke, but I went out onto the balcony and lit up anyway. She was leaving, and I needed to be sure that happened. I only breathed a sigh of relief when her Matiz pulled into traffic and disappeared around the corner. Women are great—they’re fun, pleasant, and appetizing. But they’re exhausting…

  I turned on my computer, made sure my USB modem was plugged in, and logged into my Buzdigan account. My eyes widened in shock. The number of threads had tripled, and the debate about whether the whole thing was true or not dominated the forum. True, I didn’t have that many new messages—just about a hundred, though there were more threats than I’d seen the day before. “If you’re lying, I’m coming for you.” “We’ll find you and squeeze you until you give up the information.” “We have your IP address. Tell us what’s going on, or we’re stopping by for a visit.” The kids were having their fun. Why weren’t they in school, though? What does the Ministry of Education even do? Or are they all on holiday?

  There were offers, too, and other clans had invited me to join them. All in all, a success. Anyway, what was done was done, and it was time to head to Fayroll. I just hoped the sun was shining there. Without further ado, I switched the computer over to my regular connection and lay down in the capsule.

  Fayroll greeted me with a gorgeous, sunny morning. That was probably true of most locations, with rain, fog, and everything else that is delightful about the weather probably saved for areas where they fit the script or were part of a quest. I’d have to see that at some point.

  The square was crowded and noisy. The last couple days had made me forget how many players there really were in the game, and so it took me
a few seconds to reacclimate myself to the running, trading, and cursing going on all around me.

  Two symbols grabbed my attention from the lower left corner of the gaming interface. They were both envelopes, meaning that I had mail waiting for me both in my personal inbox and in the game’s postal system. I’d have to go find a mailbox. The fact that I had something in the postal system didn’t surprise me—it was probably the Hounds of Death replying to my message. But who would have sent me a personal message? Maybe Euiikh was at it again.

  I checked to see who wrote me and whistled. The message was from Gerv. I wondered what he, the clan’s gray cardinal, would want from me, a random volunteer.

  “Come find me as soon as you log into the game. Gerv”

  Short and sweet. I was about to respond when…Ah, no need. “Gerv. Ge-e-erv!” I bellowed across the square and waved my hand. He was there fifteen steps away from me getting food from an NPC, and, when he heard me, he turned, nodded, and waved his hand as if to tell me to wait where I was. Well, if the boss tells you to wait, that’s what you do.

  Three minutes later, Gerv came over and jumped right into what he had to say.

  “Do you even get what you did?”

  I was taken aback, not exactly sure what he was talking about. My letter to the Hounds or my escapade with the quest? I immediately ruled out the possibility that he’d sniffed out something about the quest, seeing as how I was the only one who could possibly know about that. There were no witnesses.

  “I was just trying to do something good.” I decide to play it safe and be vague.

  “If you wanted to do something bad, I’d say you were insane. Are you aware that there’s an official protocol in place for interclan communication? You did write an official letter from the clan, after all. Let’s just imagine that Merkel got a letter from…oh, I don’t know, Vasya Pupkin, a locksmith from Building Maintenance 18. ‘Some guy at the pub told me that the Germans are about to go to war with us again, but don’t worry, I gave him a jab to the nose. You aren’t idiots, and you don’t need us in Berlin for the third time. Russia and Germany are friends and all. Oh, and do you have skirts in your closet, too, or just pants?’ That’s basically what you wrote. Sure, maybe the context is a little different, but the idea is the same.”