Forsaken 2027
Page 35
Five yards from the tower Cain leapt forward and upward. Grabbing the metal cladding, Cain leant out slightly and kicked off with his legs, his hands slapped down on the tower wall. Toni and Sophie grabbed an arm each and helped pull Cain up and over the tower wall. Taking a quick look at the map, Cain wanted to make sure the pack was still running into the kill zones as he shouldered the M249 and sighted the Barbarian hoard.
Chapter 35
Quest Pay-Out
Cain checked his stats and posted the party quick reference sheet in a chat message.
< Ladies, take a peek at what level we are each at now. You will need to check your own data too. I think we have all gained four levels, and we have yet to hand in the Gekards quest to Col Hope. C>
"I gained five levels from this combat. Since I joined your clan Joseph, I've gained ten full levels," said Bethany.
It did not take Sophie long to regain enough mana and stamina to wake up and be able to move.
"What's your mana restore rate, Emily?" Cain asked Sophie. Looking at her own stats, Sophie replied,
"fourteen and a half points a second. After I woke I was full in less than one and a half minutes. Now I'm OK, I'm fine, apart from a slight headache. It was a first for me I've never used all of my mana like that before."
They all shared cold food and drank from Cain's never empty chilled flask of water. After twenty minutes, Toni asked Cain when they would move out, she was desperate for a pee. Refusing to go on the building roof, they tidied everything away, then walked over to the roof edge. Cain fastened a rope to a metal lug on the roof, throwing the rope over the edge and down the side of the building. Cain went first, followed by Sophie, Lesley, Toni and Bethany brought up the rear.
"What are we doing with the rope?" Toni asked
"Leaving it, we have a few more lengths in our inventory, plus who knows somebody else may want to go up on the roof," Cain replied. His DreamBabes all laughed at the thought of a Barbarian or Gekard climbing up on the roof, trying to find them! They covered the distance from the side of the building where they came down, to the Control Tower in under ten minutes. Several players were milling around the entrance shouting they wanted the reward for completing the quest.
[Toni, there have been three parties that have tried claiming the Col's urgent quest. They rushed to the Control Tower while Sophie was recovering. Each group had to go before Col Hope and say how they fulfilled the quest. When the system played back the fighting and destruction of the Gekards and associated Barbarians. Something shows these groups to be telling untruths to the Col.
The system has penalised each group, the worst offenders a clan called The Beast Boys, are awaiting re spawns, after the game EI electrocuted them in Col Hope's office. Oh, Speedy Felix2015 and Lonesome Guy27 are in the Control Tower.]
OH shit, I pray they keep out of our way, Cain will probably kill Speedy Felix2015 out of hand, especially if he says anything to any of Cains women.
Cain threaded his way through the throng, the DreamBabes following in his wake. As Cain approached the Control Tower door, one of the NPCs recognised him and opened the door for Cain and his DreamBabes to enter. Several of the milling players complained at their preferential treatment, Sophie being last through the door flipped them the bird.
Once inside, they emptied their surplus gear to the corporal and restocked on their ammunition. Once everyone was ready and satisfied, they climbed the stairs, Cain reached the floor where Col Alan Hope had his office. Knocking on the door, Cain heard no reply. Not sure about the situation and feeling uneasy, yet again, Cain pulled out the silenced Glock, giving it to Toni while lifting a finger to his lips. Cain scanned looking for gamer tags and only noticed the Col's, he told Toni there is somebody in there but I can't see any gamer tags.
Turning his head, Cain whispered to Bethany, asking her to go kill the corridor lights, then it would be dark behind him as he entered the office. Cain waited until Bethany turned off the landing lights knocked then entered the Col's office, pushing the door wide open.
"Col Hope," Cain said as he entered, seeing the Col trussed up on his chair. A man and woman who suddenly stood up behind the Col had their weapons out but not aimed in Cain's direction.
"Don't tell us you also want to claim the quest like the other two groups?" the man said. Pointing to the woman, he continued. "Dianna here, was here first trying to claim the quest the same as me. We both took shots at the Gecko creatures, trying to drive them away from the service tunnel entrance. Now they are all gone from the entrance, we feel we should get the reward. After all I'm a noob, only a level eight.
So why don't you turn around and leave while we get the Col to give us the token, so we can hand it into the clerk downstairs? But the fool says we haven't completed the reward, hence us trying to find the token."
{Bluff, there is something odd about these two players, their levels are low like they have only just logged in to Forsaken.}
"Killing the Col won't get you the quest token, all it will do is make the system generate a new quest, one to eliminate the pair of you," Cain said. "If you leave now, the system will do nothing to you nor raise a quest against you, then you won't have a price on your heads. I can give you let's say… two hundred thousand for you to walk out of here richer and wiser," Cain offered.
Enoch tell Rahab to inform Toni. When I put the coins in my left hand on the desk, she is to kill the man. Should I transfer the coins to my right hand, she has to kill the woman. She has to make head shots, body shots will not work.
Enoch informed Rahab.
[Cain says, if the coin in his left hand goes on the table shoot the man in the head, if he swaps hands shoot the woman.]
OK, tell Enoch OK, I'm ready.
Taking one pile of tokens from his inventory, Cain offered them the deal again. The woman agreed, but the man swore at her, speaking in Russian, telling her, that if the idiot will pay for them to leave, why don't they kill him and take his money.
"Here take the money," Cain said and placed the tokens on the desk with his left hand. Cain heard a single TA as Toni shot the man right between his eyes. A different gamer tag name appeared in the kill notification, with a level of sixteen, not the eight he told them.
"Sorry about that Dianna. He would try to kill me take my money then he would have killed the Col. You would have both been the targets of a quest. You would not have wanted to face that. He will be back at his spawn point, little the worse for wear in twenty hours' time. Now, Dianna, the offer stands to you, do you want to leave and take the offer, or will you try to do what Super Dave tried?" Cain asked.
"The fool found me taking shots at the Gekards from the flyover, safe but within range of my M16. He walked up when I was shooting, he tried to pick me up when suddenly, we heard shooting and the Gekards took off after a person. That's when Dave suggested we try to pull a fast one and get our claim in for the quest.
I'm a weak player, well weaker than Dave was, I just joined Forsaken. As I was taking the shots and the Gekards ran off after that man. Dave well he practically dragged me along, and up here where we are now. I'll take the money and leave with my life," Dianna said and reached out her left hand to take the money Cain held out for her.
Suddenly, the Col's office window shattered as several rounds, shot by Bethany as she smashed into the room feet first firing her MP5 from her hip, while holding onto a rope with her left hand.
"What, why?" Cain asked as the shots threw Dianna towards the table by their impact. A savage grin flashed on Dianna's face as she screamed, "This is from Joseph." As her right arm whipped forwards from behind her back and plunged towards Cain's chest, holding a combat knife.
Cain dropped the tokens, his Glock appea
red in his hand ready to shoot Dianna before she could reach him. Dianna looked surprised as she bounced back off a magical shield that Sophie had placed in front of Cain as Toni did not trust the woman.
Still holding the rope, Bethany fired several more shots, all of them hitting Dianna, killing her she collapsed to the floor. The combat knife fell from her dead hand. A different gamer tag name appeared in the kill notification.
"Don't touch the knife, it's coated in a targeted neurotoxin poison," mumbled Col Hope. "If any part of the knife touches Joseph, he will permanently die. Or that is what the man told the woman. They forced me to give out the Gekards' quest. They were hoping it would draw you out, and it did." A system wide message appeared on all player HUDs.
"I don't understand it, they are not JW Killers clan members," said Toni.
"Why would they target you? Especially with something the game should not have." Sophie added as she surrounded the combat knife with a force field, picking it up from the open hand of Dianna.
"This is bad news," said Toni, "Let us hand the quest in, we have no need to restock our equipment, since we completed that task before coming up to spend time with Col Hope; handing in the quest."
Cain had untied Col Hope, for the second time, telling him this was becoming a habit, from the chair, making sure he was all right. The Col was happy that they had completed the quest and they had removed the Barbarian problem too. The Col told them that those scum players had informed him that there would be an announcement about something they called a system patch in. Looking at his watch, Col Hope said
"They have been here nearly six hours. Dave said to Dianna, they had three hours, to do their task. Later in the conversation he told her it was something to do with going to go live or expanding. Yes, that was it.
We need the airfield free of Gekards and Ratoles because we are getting a link to the rest of the world after the patch. That is why they needed to kill you now before the patch happens or else you will be harder to eliminate as there will be hundreds of millions of players active. What do they mean by that?" the Col asked.
"Just that you will see more people passing through and playing more quests, that's all," Cain replied.
Col Hope, handed over to Cain the completion token, so the clerk could pay him the money and gain the XP.
They watched as the two assassins bodies dissolved into pixels before being absorbed by the floor.
"Fitting, don't you think? Scum like that being underfoot now until they reboot," said Lesley as she walked on them and out of the door.
While they were stood waiting for Cain to let Bethany go from their hug, they could hear a banging noise from the elevator shaft. Cain suggested they help the people, Toni thought they should leave them to somebody else. Cain had his way and they soon had the elevator door open.
Cain looked down the shaft and dropped a short length of rope then dropped to the roof of the single elevator. Unlatching the inspection access Cain dropped the rope into the car and told the people to climb up the rope to the floor above. Cain then leapt up the shaft and out of the open elevator doors.
The first person out of the elevator was a male they had not seen before, he went to thank them and stopped mid flow. Shouting down the shaft for everyone to stay put. Cain would ask why when a hand grabbed the floor, and a person shouted for help. Bethany knelt and helped the man up to the floor. The man stood there his mouth wide open. Cain looked and noticed it was Lonesome Guy27.
"Hi Lonesome, how are you what are you doing here?" Cain asked. Before Lonesome could reply Cain said, "You have to be kidding me, he's here too, isn't he." Lonesome Guy27 stood, grimaced then nodded.
"Hey can someone please give this stud a hand, I can't get my leg over. Awe come on Lonesome, give your mate a break," said a voice Cain recognised. Against his better judgement Cain pulled on the length of rope and hauled Speedy Felix 89 onto the landing.
"Hey, it's one of my bitch, no, no. Not mine, Joseph's," Speedy Felix2015 said. Turning to see who pulled him up, his eye opened wide. Seeing Cain stood there his face fixed, cold looking, Speedy took a huge breath.
"I'm sorry man, I mean Joseph. Should not drink but being stuck in this game sometimes gets on my nerves. No, I'm sorry for trying to muscle in on your women. Wow, they are beautiful, and again I can't stop my mouth. Hurry Lonesome, we can take the stairs, they have done the quest.
Joseph and his DreamBabes are the real heroes here, not you err us, me even. Hurry Lonesome I'm leaving," Speedy Felix2015 carried on talking but his voice grew faint as he descended the stairs.
Lonesome Guy27 said goodbye, Cain let him in on a secret. He wouldn't have killed Speedy, he need not know though, he told him. Lonesome ran down the stairs after Speedy, Cain and the DreamBabes all laughed at Speedy Felix2015's expense.
Handing over the token to the Corporal Cain received the one million credits, and the party each received the five thousand experience points. Once they collected the money though they knew most items would stay in the Cyber storage for this game zone Bethany, Sophie and Lesley knew here they were rich but not wealthy. Toni knew Cain was wealthy, beyond rich in the real world.
[Toni thinks Cain is wealthy, beyond rich. From what you told me she will soon realise her assumption was wrong.] Said Rahab to Enoch
Towards The Portal
Leaving the Control Tower, they found the players clustered around the doors had left the area, knowing the road was clear from the Tower to the Casinos.
"Right, we need to head for the old control tower, it's the building that looks remarkably like a cross. When I rescued Emily, from some bad Ratoles, they were searching for some treasure or item. A human gave the Ratole boss a unique map to help them find what I think is a unique treasure. I believe JW is trying to destroy or collect all these unique items in the different zones.
I think the person who gave the Ratoles the unique map, should not have done so. Reading the code, Enoch told me that map skill a player eventually gets when they reach level sixty. But hey, their loss our find. Well, I hope it is. Once we get to the building we need to head for the basement, and we should be able to find the missing treasure," Cain said.
"So how do we do this? Do we go back into the building we zip lined over to?" asked Sophie.
Cain consulted the paper map that the gunny gave him while he stocked up on items.
"According to this paper map, we go to the large building over to our right. In there we will find an entrance to a tunnel, that takes us over to the terminal with the old control tower," replied Cain.
"Can't we see the map on yours?" asked Lesley, "stop waving that piece of paper around. Just touch it to your special map, then the information will transfer across. That way we all will see it on your world Said Lesley.
Duh, simpleton, Cain face slapped himself then touched the paper map to the unique map. Looks like Lesley was correct. The airport map is now on the shared map.
Excellent, we should be able to port out o
f this world once we find the fifth woman for my Harem. You know it sounds so strange, here I am less than a day into a game and have four beautiful and fit women sharing my bed.
Can you do something for me, Enoch? Can you access Square Projekt Quality Red servers, find out what the press release is about and see if what Super Dave and Col Hope told us holds water?
{That is an easy task, Cain. For your information, Rahab will not share this with Toni since you are the clan leader. I've been monitoring with Rahab some game play feeds.
Joseph and the DreamBabes sex scene is the most watched game play footage, ever. When you signed up to the game, you all agreed for Square Projekt Quality Red to promote game footage of players and or clans to promote Forsaken. If they play any game play or social events, they take a 25% cut from the profit from live streaming fees. When they make your game play or social action recordings into RedYou virtual recordings or TwitFace groups, they take 40% from the advertising or 10% from downloads of said virtual content.
From looking at their cash flows regarding you and your women, Square Projekt Quality Red have banked a cool 65 million from live streaming fees. Another 149 million from advertising fees, along with 368 million from download fees. That comes to a cool 582 million in EC currency.} Enoch told Cain while he walked in the middle of his babes towards terminal one's arrivals gate.
That's not a bad turn over from all the content for, you know I'm going to just initialise the company, I've used it several times but from now on Square Projekt Quality Red is going to be SPQR. SPQR sure made a good turnover.