The Greystone Chronicles: Book One: Io Online

by Dave Willmarth

  Richard looked at his son. “We, along with most of the governments on the planet, issued a notice condemning Iran for its actions. We notified all the players with frozen accounts that they would have 48 hours to log on and retrieve all their assets from the game. Then their accounts would be deleted, and their property offered as prizes for the event. We restored their access, and the fire sales commenced. The markets were flooded with everything from gear to guild houses, even castle keeps. Businesses were sold at a loss. Banks were emptied as players converted their gold back to real world currency. The in-game economy very nearly collapsed. Buyers knew the sellers were desperate, and short on time. Billions were lost. We even gave them an extra day to ease the burden on the little guys. Iran’s government, in an attempt to save face and paint the ‘infidels’ as criminals, promised each player the equivalent of a whopping $100 dollars to allow them to feed their families until they could arrange alternate means of earning a living. Then we shut down access to all of them. We also deactivated any VR gear manufactured by us, and sent them full refunds. We also refunded any used prepaid subscription fees. To this day we do not sell gear there, nor allow any of their citizens access to Europa or Io.”

  Richard took the holo and dropped it into the water glass. “I saved this, intending to show it to you when you were older. But its seems you’ve grown up faster than I expected. There is no other copy of that holo. Remember what you saw there. And remember, no mercy.” His father hugged him, then left him alone in the room.

  ****

  “Alexander? Talk to me.” Lainey’s soft words brought Alexander back to the present. “People like them have to be stopped, Lainey. If they are allowed to do this here, they’ll begin to think it’s acceptable in the real world, and that can’t happen. We kill them now. No mercy,” he said.

  “Aye, lad, no mercy,” Brick added.

  “Fuck ‘em,” Max agreed.

  Sasha took Lainey by the hand and led her a short distance away. They had a brief whispered conversation. Alexander assumed she was telling Lainey the details of how Angela Greystone had died. They both had tears in their eyes as they walked back. Lainey took up her bow. “Right. No mercy.”

  Fifteen minutes passed, and the PKs didn’t show. They either decided to wait for their friend who was the last to die, or he’d warned them that the noobs would be here waiting. Still, they waited. Sasha broke out some of the traveling rations Lydia had given them, and quietly passed them around. They ate in silence.

  After 20 minutes, one of the archers stuck his head out. He saw the piles of armor lying where they’d dropped after the players died. Alexander had left the armor, because those made up the bulk of a loot pile. He didn’t intend to let them get to their stuff, but even if they did, they’d find they had no weapons.

  Sasha whispered, “If they all come out, target the caster first. He doesn’t need weapons. After that, they’re all just easy meat.”

  The archer dashed out quickly and retrieved his pile of gear, hauling ass back to the tree line. Nobody moved. After a moment, they heard “Sons of bitches! They took our weapons and gold?” A moment later the leader came stomping out of the trees headed for the bridge. The rest of the group followed. Apparently they’d decided the noobs had taken what they wanted of their gear and moved on, doubting the conviction of Alexander’s claims.

  Big mistake.

  Alexander let them get up onto the road before he said “go”. Max shot the caster in the head. Instant kill. Brick and Alexander dashed out to the bridge and waylaid the 3 warriors before they could get to their gear. Max and Lainey each put two arrows into the archers, sending them back to respawn. The leader of the group saw Brick and Max closing from one side, and Max and Lainey from behind them, and tried to run. Sasha hit him with thorn trap, and he died screaming. The remaining two warriors, one of them being the one who’d earlier taken two arrows to the balls, actually tried to attack. They died in seconds.

  “Ok, he said their bind point was 10 minutes’ walk north. They did come from the north just now. Pick up the rest of their gear and let’s go. If we jog, we can be waiting for them when they respawn.”

  Not saying a word, the others picked up the gear closest to them, and they all jogged north into the woods, following the trail left by the PKs. Six minutes later they arrived at the temple. The warrior hadn’t been lying. The bind point was there. There were several sets of fresh barefoot footprints leading away from it to the south. The bind point was a 20x20 room with an altar in the middle, with only one door leading out. This was going to be too easy.

  “Ok guys, here’s the plan. Kill them the moment they spawn. Don’t even give them time to beg. They lost a couple levels each the first time we killed them. My guess is they’ll be 10 or lower when they spawn this time. Once they’ve dropped down to level 1, we’ll drag them back to the city and hand them over to the captain. They’ve still got the PK mark on them, so he’ll put them in the dungeon till it wears off in 2 days. The dungeon will stay their spawn point for the next 30 days. If that doesn’t convince them to quit, I’ve blacklisted them.” He shared the list with the group, “So anytime we get near one of them, they’ll show up on our map, and we’ll just repeat the process.”

  For the next hour they killed the PKs every ten minutes. Sasha had spotted some exotic herbs and mushrooms growing around the temple. As the group wasn’t in need of heals, she spent the hour harvesting herbs.

  When the PKs respawned for the final time, all at level 1, Alexander let them live. The mage spawned first, and immediately raised his hands in surrender. The archers followed, and copied the mage. The leader respawned next, cussing violently and cursing Alexander. “Our guild will kill you non-” again he didn’t get to finish his sentence, as Alexander’s sword removed his head.

  The other two warriors respawned, and both raised their hands, looking down at their leader’s head. “Look, we’re sorry, ok?” The mage spoke for the group. “We’re done. We get it. We were just following Frank, and he’s kind of an asshole. He’ll never give up, by the way. He’s offline right now emailing the rest of our guild to blacklist you.”

  “Is your guild a PK guild?” Max asked the mage.

  “No,” said the mage as the two warriors and one archer nodded their heads yes. Seeing this, the mage dropped his arms. “Fuck,” he said before an arrow pierced his eye, killing him instantly.

  Max pointed his bow at the archer who hadn’t nodded. “You. Sparky. You didn’t lie, but you also didn’t tell the truth like your friends here. So I’m going to give you another chance. All together now. On the count of three. What’s the name of your guild? 1…2…3!”

  All four of them said “PWP” nearly in unison.

  “Good boys,” Sasha smiled at them. “Now what does PWP stand for?”

  The warrior that hadn’t had his balls shot off said, “Providence Will Provide”.

  Brick spat and made a face like he’d tasted something bad. “Wow, even the name be dickish,” he said. The dumber of the two archers nodded his head again.

  “OK, here’s what’s going to happen. You boys are gonna sit here and behave for the next… 8 minutes until your friends respawn. Then we’re going to take all of you into town and turn you over to the guards, where your PK marks will earn you a nice dark room with a cot and 3 meals a day for the next 48 hours. If you resist in any way, we’ll go back to finding creative ways to kill you slowly. With those marks over your heads, we can kill you in the middle of town with the guards watching and nobody will lift a hand. Got it?” All 4 heads nodded. “Good. Have a seat.”

  “Sir?” the smarter archer raised his hand. When Alexander nodded to him, he continued. “You should know. Frank is the little brother of our guild leader. He’s not kidding when he says he’ll get the entire guild after you. We were assigned to level him up. None of us considers him a friend, but crossing him would get us blacklisted, and with PWP being blacklisted makes today look like an easy day.”

&nbs
p; The nutless warrior smiled and added, “which you’re about to find out for yourselves!”. Then he screamed as Lainey shot him in the nuts with a shock arrow, then pulled it out.

  “I think I love her,” Brick whispered to Sasha.

  After a few minutes, Frank respawned. He must have been counseled by someone with a brain while he was offline, because he kept his mouth shut. When the mage respawned as well, Alexander explained again what was going to happen. Frank just smirked at him. The entire group marched in silence back toward town. From the temple it was just over two miles through the woods. They marched the PKs through the east gate, stopping to ask the guards where they might find the captain.

  The guards saluted Alexander smartly, replying, “The captain is at the west gate, sir! We could send a runner to let him know you need him, sir!”

  The PKs all looked oddly at Alexander, then at each other.

  “Thank you, corporal…”

  “Beecham, sir!”

  “Thank you, Beecham. Please send that runner and request that the captain meet us halfway. Let’s say, the fountain in the central square?”

  “Of course, sir!” Beecham said with a smile.

  The group continued on through the city. As they passed by other players, they were greeted with whistles and cheers. Nobody liked PKs. “Hands on yer heads, gents,” Brick warned them. “We don’t want no guards thinkin yer runnin about loose in their city!” All 6 men put their hands on top of their heads and continued walking.

  As they reached the central square, they found several hundred players and more than a thousand NPC’s gathered to watch them enter. The applause and cheering rose to a tremendous level. Players taunted the PKs and whistled at them. Rotten vegetables flew at them from every direction.

  One player ran up and spit on Frank. “You assholes killed me this morning! I’m recording this. I’m gonna make you famous!” before running off. Frank turned bright red.

  As the cheering died down, Captain Redmond walked into the square with a dozen guards in formation behind him. More guards approached from the north. The captain stopped near the fountain, inspecting the prisoners. “Well, what have we here?” he asked, attempting to keep a straight face.

  Alexander bowed his head to the captain before saying, loudly enough for the entire square to hear. “Captain, we bring you six adventurers, six scum. Members of a guild known as PWP, who make their living ambushing and killing other adventurers as they leave the safe zones around the city. They have killed at least one adventurer that we know of today, and attempted to kill us near the creek bridge!”

  At this there was a thundering “Boooooo!” from the gathered crowd. The young man who’d spit on Frank started chanting, “Death to PWP!”. The chant was quickly taken up by the crowd. Fists pumping and feet stomping, they chanted “Death to PWP!” The water in the fountain rippled from the vibration of it.

  The captain raised his arms and waved in a calming motion until the crowd quieted down.

  Somewhere in the back of the crowd a high pitched voice rang out, “Gnomes Rule!”.

  The captain continued. “It seems you and your friends have done the realm yet another service this day!” he said just as loudly, giving Alexander a wink. “These men have been attacking more than helpless adventurers! They are wanted for no less than three armed robberies of merchant caravans, and the murders of two mercenary guards and Master Holston, who ran the bakery near the west gate!”

  The roar of the crowd was the loudest yet. Many of the NPC’s, and some of the players, had been fond of the baker. He would often give them delicious pastries in return for quick errands, like fetching him a bag of flour from his warehouse out back.

  The captain shouted, “Escort! Form up!” The guards grabbed the prisoners, more roughly than they absolutely needed to, and set them in three rows of two, then formed a square around them.

  “Oh, shit,” said Brick. “You idiots killed city residents? Including the BAKER?” He began to wave at the six prisoners. “You know that’s an automatic year in the dungeon, right? No parole? No bail? Your toons are now useless.” He began waving with both hands. “SEEEEEEE YA!” he shouted.

  Laughing, Sasha began waving with both hands as well. Then Max and Lainey picked it up. “Seeee ya!” Then other players followed along. Soon nearly everyone in the square was playing along, waving and chanting “Seeee ya! Seeee ya!”

  Alexander held up a hand to the captain, who nodded. He stepped into the square of guards, and leaned in close to be sure Frank could hear him. “I’m going to post the video of this, including that first fight where we noobs kicked your asses and made you look stupid, on every gaming site out there. I’m going to send it every holo network. I’m going to make your guild look like a bunch of morons. And every time they come after me, I’m going to do it again. Until PWP can’t PAY people to join its ranks.” Then he spat in Frank’s face, causing the crowd to roar in approval. He stepped back out of the square and bowed again to the captain.

  “Move em out!” the captain yelled. As the six prisoners were marched toward the hall of justice for trial, the crown once again took up the chant “seee ya!” Alexander noted players blinking out here and there, and smiled. They were likely logging off to post videos of the event.

  Captain Redmond approached the group. He offered Sasha a hefty looking money pouch. “The reward for those bastards was 100 gold.”

  “Please, Captain. We’d appreciate it if you’d give that money to the families of the baker and the guards that were killed.”

  Your reputation has increased! You are now Revered by the people of Stormforge.

  Hidden Quest Completed!

  Capture the Killers

  Capture or kill the bandits who have been robbing merchant caravans and have murdered citizens of Stormforge.

  Reward: 4,000 xp. 100 gold. Increased reputation with the citizens of Stormforge.

  Level up! You are now level 9! ...

  Level up! You are now level 10!

  Your wisdom has increased by +1. Your intelligence has increased by +1

  You have 5 free attribute points available

  You have 10 free skill points available.

  You may now choose a class specialization. See your class trainer for details.

  The captain smiled at Sasha. “I should have expected you would say such a thing. As always, if there is anything I or my men can do for you, you need only ask.”

  “Captain, if I may?” Alexander stepped forward. “We have just made enemies of an entire guild of scum like those men. The guild known as PWP, or Providence Will Provide. It is a large guild, filled with those who specialize in killing other adventurers, and they will not take lightly the embarrassment heaped upon them today. They will most certainly be targeting my friends and I, and may even decide to attack the city itself. The leader of the men you just arrested is brother to the guild leader. I expect they’ll make an attempt to free him before his term is up.”

  The captain looked thoughtful. “I will certainly bring your concerns to the king. We are still equipping the first 600 additional guards, but I think we will have sufficient forces to handle a single guild if necessary.”

  “I plan to do my best to destroy PWP. I will not tolerate their type of scum in this realm or any other. As you can see, the other adventurers largely feel the same. I may recruit some to assist in the fight. My efforts should distract them, and keep their focus on Greystone, but I wanted to warn you.”

  “Thank you again, Alexander. I must go report to the king, as the hour grows late. But Lydia would not forgive me if I failed to invite you all over for dinner.”

  “Thank you, Captain. We would be honored. We have some quests to turn in quickly, and will join you in… an hour?”

  “That works just fine. See you in an hour.”

  Alexander and the group ran around to turn in their various quests for wolf pelts, wolf meat, and boar pelts. Then they reported to the mayor of the village that the goblins
had overrun. They presented all their goblin knives and received their reward. Then Brick presented the mayor with the overlord’s head.