The director didn't answer in any way, but started thinking hard, and even asked for another coffee. Jane, behind her boss's back, showed me a raised thumb, approving of my tactic. Mark Tobius was already reaching for the telephone to call a colleague of his, quickly explaining the essence of the new problem — the grand hunt that the corporation was preparing to make a global event risked ending too soon. They only spoke for five minutes, and I realized from the clipped replies I could hear that the number of people on the line was constantly increasing. Finally, my director hung up and turned to me.
"You don't have to worry. There won't be any raids on you from above. Everyone who owns a flying mount has been disqualified from the event. A few more organizational decisions were mad as well, but you don't have to know about them. Just understand this: the corporation is not planning to aid you in any way, but it also wants the hunt to last a decent amount of time. We would consider the result acceptable, if you manage to hide for at least three days. For every day on top of that, you'll get a special bonus from the board of directors. Also, you can earn a bonus for activity exceeding eight daily hours. The hunt will begin today at precisely noon. Each Boundless Realm player will receive a special notification. After that, your goblin will be invisible to other players until six PM. No seeking spells or other methods of detection will work, either. That whole time, you'll have complete immunity to any type of damage, and even sunlight won't do any harm to your vampire. Take advantage of this time, spend it wisely! That is all. Best of luck to you, Timothy!"
* * *
I was standing on the upper deck of the oared trading galley Tipsy Gannet under the scorching midday sun. I had unusual sensations — for the first time in Boundless Realm, I didn't have to hide from the rays of the sun. In fact, placing my body in the outpouring of golden warmth was quite pleasant. I wasn't afraid to overheat — my huge ears flapping in the breeze served as a natural temperature regulator. The steady wind allowed our galley to move quite quickly using just the foresail, so the oarsmen were resting and sleeping on their benches.
The oarsmen on The Tipsy Gannet, I immediately realized, were all slaves — mostly human, but there were plenty of other races represented as well: orcs, dwarves, and even a minotaur. I also met members of my own race among them — there was a huge veiny goblin sleeping on the dirty floor, having ceded the bench to his orc partner. The whole green back of the oarsman was covered in a mesh of old and fresh lashes from the overseer's whip. On his frail body, through the skin, I could clearly make out his ribs and spine. I didn't wake the goblin up, though, and continued on.
There were around sixty oarsmen in total. Each of them had a wide metal shackle around their ankle, which was chained to a loop cut into the deck. As for clothes, they only had loincloths. The whole living space of these slaves was the two-meter radius they were chained into. The oarsmen were sleeping, working, eating and defecating all in the same confined area. The ill, weak, or rebellious oarsmen were simply thrown overboard to be eaten by the many marine predators of Boundless Realm. To be honest, I was shocked by what I was seeing — I'd personally prefer death to such a pitiful existence. But, my curiosity satisfied, I hurried away from the oar deck, as the stench there was simply unbearable.
On the aft of the galley, not far from me, were the four NPC teenagers — Irek, Yunna, Dar, and Dara — they were flailing away with determination on the ogre, who was stripped to the belt. Shrekson Bastard maintained his composure, as if none of it even had anything to do with him. From time to time, our giant's life bar would go down into the red, and I would give the ogre fortifier yet another healing potion, totally curing him.
"Thick Skin skill level fifteen!" said the giant, boasting of his success. "Maybe that's enough for today? I mean, my whole body is in pain. I’m about to give out!"
"No, let's stick with the plan and continue leveling you. You need to get Thick Skin up to level twenty today so you can choose your first specialization," said my sister, ever the taskmaster. She never took any excuses. "No matter, just bear it for a few more levels, then I'll release the wasps on you, and the leveling will go much faster."
Our Ogre Fortifier made a blatant shiver at the unpleasant perspective, but continued standing stoically and serving as a punching bag nevertheless. The naiad, overhearing the conversation, his fishing pole dangling over the edge of the galley, laughed:
"No matter, you can bear it. They spent all morning punching me, and nothing came of it. I'm alive, and I've even almost come back to my senses! Ugh, what torture! But the reward for the suffering is pretty sweet: a perk to reduce physical damage by a quarter. It’s like a dream!"
My sister was the one who had recommended that both of our close-combat fighters rapidly level Thick Skin — our group needed "tanks," who could take blows on the front lines and hold back the enemy. And though the naiad trader had this skill as a secondary, the mavka had been insistent in recommending the ogre fortifier make it a primary, due to its leveling Constitution and Strength. The giant took Heavy Armor as a secondary skill on my sister's advice, as well. We hadn't actually found any armor for the ogre yet, but it was at the very top of our purchase list.
"My Hand-to-Hand is up to seventeen!" Dar boasted, and almost immediately, his sister echoed out the same.
Amazing! That was the main combat skill for our warg shapeshifters. It impacted their damage ability and increased their Strength (which also governed the wounds caused by their claws).
Foreman Skill increased to level 10!
Stealth Skill increased to level 15!
I wasn't suffering from lack of things to do on Tipsy Gannet either, and was improving my skills as quickly as possible — my NPC goblins and the wargs in human form were working actively, leveling the Foreman skill of their master at the same time. In the galley's hold, the Gray Pack was hunting down the ship's rats with determination, increasing my Animal Control skill. Also, even in human form, the wargs leveled this skill as well. In the end, I'd agreed with my sister and filled my last free secondary slot with that skill. I had even raised Animal Control to level six already.
What was more, until six this evening, I would only be visible to NPCs. Living players couldn’t even see me at point blank, and I used this fact shamelessly to level my Stealth. Although there was also a downside to being invisible and invincible — all of Valerianna Quickfoot's plans to level her Beastmaster and Water Magic skills by using me as an indestructible target for spells and pets came to naught. My sister couldn't see me, so she couldn't choose me as a target for attack. My own companions, the wyvern, the goblins, and the Gray Pack, had a programmed-in rule against attacking their master, so I couldn't use them to level Dodge or Acrobatics either.
All that said, I was leveling the Veil skill very quickly, making a couple punches on the ogre every so often, then changing the game logs to hide that fact. In just a few hours, I managed to raise Veil to level twelve, but this method did eat up my endurance, so my big-eared troglodyte was barely able to stay standing. My sister had set me the mission of raising Veil to level twenty in a few days — then, I could choose my first specialization, and among the various skill improvement options, there existed the ability to hide my character's real name for some time. That could come in very handy, if my goblin had to pass a checkpoint at the port or when entering a city, or if I needed to walk past a group of living players.
Alright, my endurance had come back up a bit. I came up to the Ogre Fortifier and struck the titan in the chest with my fist. I did no damage to him, just hurt my own hand. Hand-to-hand combat was certainly not a strong point for my big-eared goblin, but I didn't need to do any damage now. I clicked on the Veil icon, lowering my endurance points to 1 of 195 and corrected the logs to show that Irek had struck him instead of me.
Veil Skill increased to level 13!
My weary legs were giving out, so I had to sit down on the boards of the deck again. It was quite hard work levelling a character... Taisha appeared from the st
airs leading to the hold. Today, she was looking especially green — the goblin beauty was feeling nauseated. Seasickness was very rare for NPC’s, yet Taisha was the only one on the whole galley that couldn't bear the boat journey. And now, barely glancing at the white-capped waves, the salty splashes and the deck rocking underfoot, the thief threw herself toward the edge of the ship and vomited overboard.
It was precisely her temporary infirmity that had caused Taisha not to take part in the active skill leveling organized by my sister for the whole group. The goblin girl just sat in the hold on bales of dried fish and passively leveled her Stealth skill — I looked, and she had already brought it up to level eighteen. Not bad, but too little for truly comprehensive character progress. Valerianna Quickfoot was planning for Taisha to increase her main thief skills in our days of marine travel — Dodge, Dagger, Lock-Picking — and it was very unfortunate that these plans were not to come to fruition. I was distracted from the bad thoughts by my sister's voice:
"Amra, the Boundless Realm corporation just released a series of advertising clips on the event." Valerianna Quickfoot couldn't see me, but she deduced based on the reactions of the nearby NPC’s approximately where I was, and was looking there. "I have to admit, I really liked the videos. Say what you will, but the corporation has great marketing and advertising specialists. The clips of the winged green snake were really cool. They showed it growing up from a worm to a thirty-meter giant python. By the way, in these videos, it says that the wyvern should be able to carry one average-sized player at level twenty-five. So, our shared mission is to quickly level VIXEN to 25, then no one will be able to catch you!"
"But it isn't all puppies and rainbows," I replied. My sister still couldn't see me, but immediately turned her head toward my voice, though her eyes were looking through me, rummaging through the emptiness. "Yes, with equal levels and conditions, my VIXEN will outpace any creature in Boundless Realm, other than the uncatchable Phoenix. But VIXEN is still very small, and mounts get a speed and endurance boost at every level. Also, the Riding skill adds one percent speed to the mount for every level. So, players with high-level skills and high-level riding creatures, not only would not get left behind by my wyvern, they would be constantly catching up to me, if on the ground."
I had actually made the calculations this morning, taking as my initial data the speed of the most common mounts in Boundless Realm. Being honest, in the end I even deflated the results a bit. But what I got was that a well-leveled player on a lively steed of level one hundred (giving the mount three perks) wouldn't go any slower than my wyvern, due to the multiplying speed coefficients. And well leveled riding cheetahs, rhinoceroses, hellhounds, ostriches and some other animals would be able to move much faster than VIXEN, even if on the ground. Of course, in the distant future, the picture would be completely different, and the Royal Forest Wyvern would be able to teach a thing or two to these cheetahs and ostriches, but who would give me that much time to level? My winged child needed to grow and grow just so she could hold the weight of one rider without getting tired too fast.
"Oh, what a beaut!" said the naiad, pulling a meter-long silvery fish from the water.
Level-8 Minor Mullet
"Great! You haven't caught one of those yet. Give the trophy to Amra!" the mavka ordered.
The naiad trader meekly placed the mullet on the boards and returned to fishing. I stashed the fish in my inventory so I could eat it later in a secluded corner. My biggest disappointment of the day was the fact that we didn't manage to get to the Ookaa fish market. I had plans to visit the live seafood market there and quickly level my vampire skills, but the underwater merchants weren't going to show up at the stalls on shore until eight in the morning, and the Tipsy Gannet left the docks at seven. We couldn't afford to wait a whole week for another ship, so I had to make do with what the naiad caught underway. I told my companions that I needed samples of various kinds of blood to level my Alchemy skill. The explanation was to everyone's satisfaction, and no questions followed.
The naiad slipped another piece of bait on his hook and cast his line. For bait, he was using the meat of the mollusks that gathered in huge numbers on the shore in the morning. Valerianna asked Max Sochnier how much more time he needed to level his Fishing skill to twenty. The fish-man answered almost instantly:
"I'm at level sixteen in it now, and every trophy increases the bar by four percent. It's currently up to seventy-two. So it will be level seventeen in about fifteen minutes, and we can see from there. On the one hand, they'll start biting a bit more often, but on the other, I'll need to catch more to reach the next level."
Valerianna started calculating in her head, perhaps even opening skill tables in the built-in guide, and told him it would be about three hours. Max Sochnier sighed heavily:
"I cannot keep staring at that damned bobber... I never thought I’d get sick from fishing... By the way, friends, shouldn't we be going west?"
"Yes," I replied in surprise, opening the map.
The amount of discovered area on it had grown considerably, though it was mostly sea and coastal areas. Far to the east was the underwater village of Ookaa, where the Tipsy Gannet had departed from early this morning. Now, our marker was in the area of a group of nameless islands. But the Naiad Trader was right: for some reason the galley had deviated from the path and was now going north. My sister confirmed this observation:
"Based on the map I bought this morning from the captain, we should be on a direct westward path all day. That's how we get to the Island of the Wanton Widow, where the captain promised we'd be spending the night. But now, we're heading for these tiny islands for some reason. Something must have happened."
"I'll go and figure it out," I said, standing with difficulty. My green goblin was slightly swaying in fatigue.
On the galley, meanwhile, clear changes had taken place: the sleepy atmosphere of the last few hours when the sailors, beaten down by the hot sun, were just barely moving around the deck or even just sacking out in the shade was no more. There was now a storm of activity. The overseers had already awoken the slaves and were now giving all the oarsmen water and bread with corned beef. The middle-aged bearded skipper, despite the burning sun, pulled on a mail shirt and donned a helmet. His first mate opened the normally locked arsenal and gave the sailors their weapons.
"What is going on?" I inquired, scanning the sea, but not finding anything out of the ordinary or dangerous.
"The lookout on the crow's nest saw a sail on the horizon," the captain said, pointing a finger at the top of the mast, where there was a light-haired boy looking out from a little platform. "What do you see up there, Johnny?"
"I don't see anything now. It's behind the island," he shouted from the crow's nest.
The captain was stroking his disheveled beard with abandon, as if there were some biting insects pestering the man. And perhaps that was the case — Tipsy Gannet did have quite an abhorrent hygiene situation, after all.
"Maybe it will just pass by," the skipper stated hopefully, as if he didn't truly believe in the auspicious outcome. "A sail in these waters either means a patrolling military ship of the Kingdom of Lars, or pirates. And I don't want to meet with either of them. Ugh, we should have gone further south, but I didn't want to squander the favorable wind. Pirates sometimes stop here on the unpopulated Skeleton Islands for careening."
My big-eared goblin made a surprised face, not understanding the unfamiliar term. The captain noticed my incomprehension and smiled awkwardly:
"Eh, that landlubber ignorance. You don't know something so basic... In these warm waters, any ship will quickly get bogged down with barnacles and seaweed, which makes it go much slower. That is why, at high tide, we bring the ship into shallow sandy bays and tie it down, so that at low tide, we can get all the shells off and, if necessary, resin up the bottom..."
The captain's explanation was interrupted by a shout from Johnny the lookout:
"I see the sail again! It's off to
the north-west, past the very farthest island."
"Well, scurvy!" the captain cursed, clearly having seen something over there, though I still saw nothing. "It's pirates. An orcish drekar of the Brotherhood of the Coast. They're coming against the sun. They might not have seen us yet. Hey, helmsman, head for that narrow channel between the two nearest islands. We'll try to hide behind the palm trees. If it doesn't work, we can try to negotiate. My cargo won't be of much interest to the orcs — what do they need dried fish for? It's all over the place! If they ask for protection money, I'll pay..."
"Captain, they're turning. They're making a course for us! We've been spotted! They're raising a flag — its black with a white shark!"
"Anything but that..." based on how the captain went pale, I could immediately guess that the black flag with white shark was well known to him. "It's the Merciless Aarsch, a hardened orc pirate from the Brotherhood of the Coast. He has a seething hatred for all humans and is known to kill them without exception. Sometimes, he lets sailors and slaves of other races go depending on his mood, but never people. He says it’s his revenge for the time humans burned down his home village — he swore to kill all people he came across from then on. Oars in the water! Double-time! Don't spare the lash for these lay-abouts!"
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