by Arthur Stone
All the pieces were in place. Now it was just a question of miniaturizing and optimizing.
He reached the well-familiar garden. The smell of the flowers that made life so difficult for invisible players was as heady as ever.
As soon as he thought of that, a figure came out of an invisible state right next to him. It materialized right next to Ros. The spy stood there gaping, for a moment, and then started to walk away hastily. Were they following him, or could it be mere coincidence? Marchikatidi would bet it was the former, and Ros would not gainsay him.
Screw the sniffers. Screw everyone. He'd be gone in a few minutes.
A warrior in silvery armor stood up in his way, and said, in a tone bearing no objection,
"There's a very important person that wishes to talk to you."
Ros made a detour without slowing down, grunting,
"Tell them to join the queue. And it's a long one."
He had no interest in anyone who would try to arrange a meeting this way. Nor were they likely to tell him anything new. He already had a huge amount of disjointed data that he had to process. Then he would decide on what he needed to do next.
Nearly all the benches were taken. There were dozens of unrecognized geniuses fidgeting under the awnings, listening to another poet recite his latest masterpiece from above,
"Beavers, ambush, wind and wood,
Everyone's misunderstood.
I was hovering and shattered,
Lust for blood no longer mattered.
Come outside, I'll howl and croon,
Float under a crimson moon,
Sell my soul? I might, I might,
To receive the gift of flight."
It looked like those rhymesters haunted the place all day long, scribbling their "masterpieces" with the assistance of a rhyme dictionary or some such.
Alternatively, Ros understood nothing about modern poetry. But everything he'd heard so far sounded hopelessly awful. Was there a catch? Were these people just pretending to be poets? It seemed weird, but it was an option nonetheless.
Ros reached the base of the ramp, pushing aside the local celebrity poets, most of which didn't bother to level up above 10, and started to ascend the spiral in a determined manner, heading for the top of the arch. He moved fast enough. The author of the verse about beavers, wind, ambushes, woods, and flight, didn't even manage to finish reciting his masterpiece. Ros didn't feel like hearing any more of that gibberish, and so he grabbed the self-styled poet by the shoulder, shaking him out of his reverie, and said loudly,
"You can finish later. My muse cannot wait."
"Say what?!"
"Which part of 'later' don't you understand?"
"But you can't do that! I'll call the guards!"
"Call whoever you will. Did I say you couldn't? Just hold still and don't twitch—you're breaking my poetic concentration."
The crowd below started to get agitated in the meantime.
"Hey! Who's that? Where did this oaf come from?!"
"Hey, man! Join the queue! Don't jump it!"
"I've never seen him before! We've got to call the guards!"
"Hold on! Didn't you recognize him? That's the very guy who won the match!"
"What guy?! What match?!"
"Didn't anyone see the last Obsidian Temple arena battle!"
"Holy shit! It's the very guy who'd managed to defeat Bowlegs!"
"That's right! Didn't leave him a chance! Ripped him apart completely!"
"Bullshit! I've seen Bowlegs fight. He makes quick work of higher-level players without breaking a sweat, and this guy's level is twice lower than his!"
"Are you stupid or what? Take a look at the recording. It's already been uploaded to the forum and viewed lots of times. It's a hot topic!"
"Yeah! Look how he didn't leave your darling Bowlegs a single chance! He just tore him to pieces!"
They stopped talking about calling the guards. Once the crowd realized that the queue of unrecognized geniuses was jumped by a new celebrity and not just some street rough, their attitude changed at once. Even the guy whom he'd just forced to shut up pretended he'd meant nothing of the sort, and said respectfully,
"I congratulate you on your victory. Bowlegs is a very dangerous opponent. He's a real good fighter, and his battles are always a pleasure to watch."
Ros saw the warrior in shining armor down below accompanied by a few other players. He managed to recognize one of them. It was the invisible spy revealed by the flowers a few minutes ago.
They were looking upwards and discussing something.
Well, they were free to discuss all they wanted. Ros would never deal with someone whose messengers were so rude. If he was important to them, they'd have to learn to treat him with respect.
He raised his hand and said softly,
"I climbed up here for a purpose."
The peculiar acoustic effect of the arch made his words audible to everyone down below. The crowd grew silent. Everyone wanted to know what the champion would say next.
"As I stood down below and listened to the poem about flight and soul trade, written by this half-baked poet wannabe, I got a sudden wish to contribute to the flying topic. What I have for you is a real drama in five short lines. It was only performed in Second World once—without an audience. The only audience I had when I recited these tragic lines were the trees and the grass. But now those enchanted flowers and you will hear it, too.
The crowd was still overwhelmed by the recently revealed information about his fame, and did not react to this obvious trolling in any way. He never gave them enough time, anyway.
Which was good, come to think of it. The last thing he wanted was to be interrupted.
He looked down, at the paved paths down below and the whitish rectangles of marble benches. It would be a long fall. And that was exactly what he needed.
It was time.
"There was a romantic young nerd…"
He tensed and crouched a little before the jump.
"Who believed he could fly like a bird."
He pushed himself off the top of the arch, and leaped into the air, his head turning toward the ground.
"He leaped off a skyscraper as his final caper…"
There was the fall, the paved ground getting ever closer, and the shocked faces of the audience seeing a poet read a limerick while falling down to earth. He wondered if anyone would applaud over his dead body. He tried as hard as he could, after all.
"And was flat as a sheet when interred."
And then there was darkness.
* * *
"Hot news! Hot news! The hottest news so far! No hotter news than ours! Sensational events! The Bloody Bug comes back! The deathless horror attacks Eastern European players! Fourteen members of the Kurwa guild were brutally devoured alive by an immortal monster! Can anyone stop the insatiable Smiley Face?! Read the collective complaint from the players who had been assaulted! Another sensation! An outrageous battle at the Obsidian Temples ends in a terrifying drama! The doped-up match winner disrupted a poetry evening dedicated to the memory of the unjustly slain mobs of the Second World, displaying absolute insensitivity! Brains splashed all over the park's paved paths! The blood is still fresh! The mystery of the winner's identity! Only our newspaper has the scoop on all the details!"
A newspaper vendor hawking his wares in the street of the capital.
Chapter 17
"You have died. XP lost: 9.8% of the current value. Attention! Use scrolls and skills that lower XP loss after death, or have players with a high level of reviving skills resurrect you. Attention! If you get killed again, you can lose your current level! You are resurrected at your current respawn point: Locked Land, Granite Wall Ridge, Rotten Canyon Mine. Current owner: Agythric’s gang. There is high likelihood of aggressive actions from monsters and players. It is not recommended to place your bind points in dangerous zones."
Ros got up and nodded to Agythric, who stood some three paces away.
"Hi! Haven’t seen you in a while."
"The stupid meat has failed to complete its important task. The stupid meat has decided to die in the most stupid way possible. You cannot trust stupid meat."
"You haven't changed one bit."
Agythric grinned,
"I have always been great and mighty, and that is what I am, and will always be. I am not like some stupid meat I know. Would you like to pick up your pickaxe and get back to mining, then? That's the only thing you can do. You are hopelessly pathetic."
"Hey, chill! Did you forget your medication today? Got problems you'd like to talk about?"
"I am far from pleased. You have let the elders down. Why did you have to come back in the first place? You didn't have to. I'd rather you were gone for good. This is a disgrace."
"I have done what your elders had asked me to. Now I have to give them the message from the emperor."
"You lie! You stupid meat! You should have carried the reply to the steppes instead of dying like a cretin and getting sent here!
"According to the conditions of the quest, I cannot use teleports unless otherwise specified, but there was no condition that prohibited dying. Do you have any idea how long it would take me to walk here? It's a long way to the capital of the West. A pigeon-toed lummox like you would never make it.
"The stupid meat is insulting me! And it isn't supposed to!"
"If I ever think of taking tact lessons, you'll be my last choice. Where are my friends? They were supposed here."
"The meat that was here with you kept on sitting and waiting. But then the meat got bored, and decided to explore the caverns. Most likely, it prefers the pickaxe to the sword. And I like it when meat is diligent with the pickaxe. You should pick one up as well. Everything's gone to pot. There are no slaves left at all. There's just one. But that meat is ridiculous. It will never manage to mine any gold."
"I'll go get my friends, and you get ready. Once we're back, I'll give you the Emperor's reply."
"Agythric will wait. He is curious—does the stupid meat lie or tell the truth? He doesn't believe that the stupid meat has the reply. He thinks the stupid meat lies. The great Tardath Yrch will be here in the morning. When he doesn't find the Emperor's reply, he'll be really angry with the stupid meat. He might even give it to me so that it might work off its great trespass at the mine.
It was not much fun to communicate with an NPC controlled by a low-level AI. It kept saying the same thing over and over again, and it would be impossible to steer the conversation away from a very limited number of topics. Ros decided to waste no more time. He turned around, following the well-familiar path.
There it was—the entrance to the old mine. He had been here countless times, and knew all the nearby galleries by sight, requiring no map. He could probably even find his way around with his eyes closed.
If it weren't for the mobs, that is. The critters inhabiting the mines were very dangerous, and Ros spilled a great deal of his blood down in the mine back in the day.
He didn't find his friends near the entrance. However, when he sat down and listened carefully for a minute, he heard something quite unlike the sounds of mining in the distance. Someone must be fighting someone out there.
The old mine was a right labyrinth, and it was hard to detect the direction the sounds were coming from. However, judging by how the din kept getting louder, Ros must have been headed in the right direction, even if he did take a wrong turn occasionally.
Then the sounds of the battle died, and he had to stop. He was in a maze of twisted little passages, all alike. They sprawled across many levels, and you could roam them for days without ever finding what you needed. Waiting was a better option. Judging by his experience, where there was one skirmish, another would follow shortly.
Ros was correct in his assumptions. He stayed put for half an hour, working on his Enchantment skill, and then heard the noises again. He started toward it, but then one of the underground denizens attacked him. It wasn't the most dangerous of creatures, and Ros would be able to handle it even without a pet—being well-equipped would suffice. Yet he wanted to indulge in some boyish mischief—he was that happy to return underground, an environment he knew so well.
He was a rrokh by race. No matter how random his choice, it still showed. Anyway, he had gotten used to spending most of his time underground. That was his lot in the game, and there was nothing to be done about it.
The mob froze as it should have. Sleep worked without a glitch. Ros headed toward the sounds of the battle, but the critter soon caught up with him, seeking to punish him for making it stand motionless for such a long time. This time he used Entangling Roots, once again evading the attack and moving on.
That's how the two of them went on. Sleep, followed by Roots, followed by Sleep, and then Roots once again.
They carried on in that manner until another mob appeared. That was where Ros felt hard-pressed for the first time. He couldn't control both at once, so he had to heal himself. But, out of some strange stubbornness, he never tried to finish off the pursuit, dragging the mobs along.
When he turned another corner and finally reached the place of the battle, he already had three mobs following him, which was beginning to become problematic. He wasn't really that scared of dying—he'd just be transported back to the mine's entrance, after all, but nor was he particularly eager to experience it.
"Hey! Noobs! Here comes the Midnight Special!" he cried out boisterously, casting another bunch of healing spells on himself.
Tangh shook his head sadly as he finished off an enormous shadowcrawler.
"Ros, did you bring all the mobs from this mine to us?"
"Duh, don't exaggerate. Just three measly little mobs."
"That's a bit too much—we barely manage to dispatch so much as one."
"Oh, anything for you."
"Well, thank you then, dear friend. Prepare for respawn."
"Don't fret so much. I'm with you, after all. Let's tear them a couple of new ones; they're getting cocky."
"You don't have a pet along, do you?"
"Why would I want to share this victory with some pet mob? Hey, Danger Babe! Cast a shield on Tangh, and Sleep on one of these critters; I'll do the same with the other. Then we'll start giving the third one grief.
Flashes of spells lit up the cave. The clangor of the weapons became louder; the Norder appeared to have found his second wind. The monsters weren't the easiest kind to deal with, but they didn't stand a chance against a trio of experienced players who had already fought many a battle here. Their group was small, but they fought together well, and were used to understanding one another without words.
One of the mobs fell, followed by another, and the third one was no sweat at all. Last one down.
The Norder shook his head again.
"I admit that you have become much stronger over the time you've been away, but it used to be easier before. Trouble with pets, is there?"
"Well, the game's played a trick on me—I cannot raise a level 200 pet anymore. But I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, so don't you worry. You haven't been idle, either, as I can see."
"Tangh is at 102, I'm at 99. We've found a great place for leveling up. But look at you! You've hardly grown at all," Danger Babe sounded surprised.
"I've managed to get hold of some equipment that's made me stronger. By the way, Santa has a few things for you, too."
"Come again?!"
"You'll like them, I promise."
"Actually, we have someone else here who could do with some equipment. Is there anything you could craft?"
"Who did you meet? And what are you doing here, anyway? A mine is hardly the best place for leveling up. Three mobs of this sort would squash you like overripe tomatoes without me."
"Don't be such a kibitzer. You left us a message at the forum, so we came to the mine to meet you. We waited for a while, but you were nowhere to be seen. So it got a bit boring. Then someone got out of the tunnel. Agythric's m
obs got hold of a player—well, they enslave everyone they meet, as always. Remember how bad it was for me and Tangh at the beginning? Before you joined us? Well, we decided to help the poor thing. So we're guarding this gallery. It leads to a dead end, and there's some ore there."
"Agythric wants gold again?"
"Sure does."
"Will he ever be sated?"
"Well, this time he needs less than back then. Just seven lumps. But you know it's hard enough to come by so much as one here."
"It depends."
"Well, we can't all be master miners like you."
"Let's go and take a look at the ore. I have to admit I'm a bit of an expert in it."
* * *
The day turned out to be full of surprises. One of them waited for Ros in one of the dead-end tunnels. As he approached, he heard the monotonous sound of pickaxe hitting the rock. However, it wasn't a burly dwarf wielding this heavy implement, but a slim and petite figure.
"Thyri?! How did you end up here?!"
The girl turned around and squinted in surprise.
"Who would you be, then?"
Ros got so brazen that he reverted to his original name before entering the mine, and changed his appearance somewhat. Every interested party could find him with ease using some hard-to-understand method, so what was the point in hiding? Noobs with unpronounceable names like his were two a penny. The general public was already beginning to forget his heroic deeds, so he was in no danger of being followed by crowds of overexcited fans. As for all the others, practice showed that he couldn't really avoid them.
Small wonder, then, that Thyri did not recognize him. He changed his appearance too, after all. He didn't revert to the original one, though—that was way too ugly. Nevertheless, he was a far cry from Bubble the simpleton.
"Duh, it's me. The noob who'd sent you here. You were supposed to wait for me at your bind point."
"Bubble? You've changed a lot."
"I've been unwell, you know…"
"You mean, you know her?" Danger Babe butted in.