The clock was showing exactly six in the evening, so I was now vulnerable and visible to players once again. The mail signal beeped, telling me I'd gotten new messages. To its rhythm, the box in the cabin again began to shake. I heard a muted howling sound from inside. But I had no patience for mail or the mysterious chest now — I noticed that the fabric I'd placed over the porthole was fairly ragged, and lots of little needles of light were poking through into the room. I walked cautiously back into a corner of the cabin, called up the menu and exited Boundless Realm — it was still impossible to walk around the lower decks of the bireme without serious risk to my life, and I was not planning to take that risk that for no reason.
What was more, I was exhausted and famished after so many hours spent in the game, and it was time to upload the video clip on the first day of the hunt. I'd already prepared the material in the morning, but I was in no rush to upload it — why give my pursuers hints before I had to?
But I didn't have time to do anything at all. As soon as I got out of the virtual reality capsule and put my clothes on, someone started knocking frantically at the door of my work cabin. In the doorway was Veronica — a familiar Boundless Realm corporation employee who played a dryad dancer and was considered the most successful in our group.
"Geeze, finally! I couldn't get ahold of Leon, Max or you no matter what I did — for some reason, the private messages wouldn't send, and I didn't have money for paid ones."
"That must mean the distance is too great," I said, not giving the girl's words any meaning. "So, Veronica, what do you want?"
"The distance, as a matter of fact, is minimal, but you still can't hear me. I can’t shout any louder because I have a gag in my mouth, and other ways of contact are unavailable. What do I want? I want you to finally let me out of that damned box!"
Woah... I shuddered in surprise. Over the next few seconds, a million thoughts stampeded through my mind. So, it was the dryad scratching and howling away in that big box? What was she doing in there? Had she seen me drinking the raw blood? There was an air hole in the box, so she certainly could have. Although, I should have still been invisible to all players. So, had she seen or not? The answer to that question was very important to me. Also, what should I do with the unwanted passenger now? Maybe I should just toss the box into the sea and put an end to it. As it was, the dryad might be spying on my crew and informing on my coordinates! In that case, all my ploys to get away from pursuers would be useless. Although... I wonder if a player can actually see on the big map where they are located while in a locked box? Probably not. Although, who knows? I'd never checked.
"Whatever made you decide that Leon and I were anywhere near you?"
"Timothy, don't take me for some subhuman idiot!" the girl exclaimed, offended and puffing out her lips. "I could hear you talking perfectly, I saw you write stuff in the local chat a few times. I read the messages, but couldn't answer. Then, I saw your Goblin Herbalist next to me in the cabin. I even tried to get your attention, but you walked into the room and immediately exited the game. I need to get out of that damned box right now, though!My dryad's hunger and thirst bars are already in the red! My health is falling fast!"
What the...? So, what should I do here? I could just not react and let the dryad starve. That way, she'd respawn somewhere far, far away from the pirate ship and not mess with our plans. Perhaps that would be simplest. That thought must have shown itself on my face, because the girl then said angrily:
"Just don't think of killing me! I'll hold a grudge against all of you forever! After all, I've gone through so much after those NPC savages captured me that there's nothing on earth that would make me want to respawn in that accursed village! I was nothing but happy when the savages paid off the orc pirates with me, even though the Merciless Aarsch was a headache and perverted bastard! But I'd already thought up a plan to flee. The ropes cannot hold my dryad. At any moment, she can remove her manacles. But I didn't want to do that too soon and was waiting for the pirates to dock somewhere, because it would be stupid to try to flee a ship at open sea teeming with bandits. But then you showed up and the situation changed completely. Now, let me go or tell Leon, and he'll do it. With him, the pirates won’t push me around!"
I imagined the sight of a naked dryad walking around the deck of the pirate bireme while dozens of orcs gaped, drooling lecherously. That was the opposite of what I wanted. A woman on a ship is always considered a harbinger of fights, stabbing sprees and lots of problems in general. But this dryad dancer, renowned for her easy ways... There was quite a bit to be afraid of here. The orc pirates had even started glancing at little Yunna, even though the goblin girl was clearly immature and I immediately took her under protection, by declaring her my relative. The wood nymph also sensed the attentive leering gazes of pirates, but found her own way out, having remembered an instructive story as if incidentally, and telling it to them, saying any male of another race who lusted after a mavka was forever deprived of masculine force. The wise shaman Ghuu confirmed the truth of the story for all to hear, and now the pirates would recoil and jump away every time they saw Valerianna Quickfoot.
In such conditions, releasing the naked dryad to the pirate crew would have meant a situation guaranteed to spin out of control, possibly even leading to blatant disobedience and subordination. Veronica had strongly underestimated the gravity of the problem and overestimated the role the Ogre Fortifier could play as her protector. The giant would be able to watch her every step, but he wouldn't manage to stand up to a team of wild orcs. Even the Merciless Aarsch understood that and hid her from his crew. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have managed to hold her prisoner in the box any longer — Veronica was very friendly with Leon, and the former construction worker would come to her aid. What could I do? The girl, standing in the doorway, was awaiting an answer.
"Alright, go back in the game. I'll tell my friends, and you'll be let out soon."
"Excellent! But, could you maybe open the box? It's just that my dryad... how can I put this... is a bit too exposed. Aarsch entertained himself in his orcish manner, binding the dryad in various perverse positions, drawing designs on her body and then admiring the result. I'd prefer not to have Leon or Max Sochnier see me looking like that. I need to get myself back together first."
"Alright, until your dryad is back in order, I won't tell my friends," I promised my colleague. "Go into your work cabin and log in."
As soon as Veronica closed the door, I took out my cell phone, called my sister and described the situation. Val immediately appreciated the seriousness of the problem, but told me not to clutter up my mind with that now, promising she'd handle it herself. Finally, I got around to my daily video clip. The Cursed House, the Midnight Wraith, then looking for traces of the wargs in Stonetown and the forest camp. Catching the lovers unawares (my sister provided that material, though some scenes had to be blurred out a bit) and the battle with the pregnant druid Belle Sweetypie. I watched the material one more time and was left very satisfied. The viewers would be sure to get the impression that my goblin herbalist was somewhere near the Cursed House, just as before. And if the pursuers tried to predict the movement of my group based on the coordinates and times shown in the video, the trajectory would lead them in the opposite direction of the submarine village of Ookaa, which was more than fine with me.
Now it was time for the hardest part — I wanted to say something about the hunt myself. This morning, I went onto the Boundless Realm forum and was unpleasantly surprised — topics on the flying wyvern and her big-eared master were still in the top positions. The interest of the players was nowhere near dying down. And at that, in the consciousness of millions of players, a steadfast image had formed of an enemy that had cut them all to the quick, a fraudster that absolutely had to be punished by the most severe methods available, given that the corporation didn't want to that on its own.
This treatment of the events was not at all to my liking, and I wanted to try to change all their
minds. There could be no doubt in the fact that my video would be watched by a great many players, at which a large number of them had an initial prejudice against me and were in a very aggressive mood. Well, what could I say here? They practically all wanted to kill me! So, I wanted to show them all that I was a player just like them, and describe the events from my point of view. Of course, it would have been naive on my part to suppose that one video would be capable of changing the focused negativity of the masses, but I was still hoping that my point of view would at least be heard.
So then, my initial bearing: no despondency, and especially no despair. Nothing of the sort. In fact, I should be telling them all how lucky I felt! Representatives of the globally famous Boundless Realm corporation had contacted me and offered me the chance to take part in the largest-scale event of the year! The corporation appreciated my ability to play Boundless Realm well in an unconventional fashion and said I was of great interest to them! My modest big-eared Goblin Herbalist was even held up an example to be imitated, because I had tried from my very first day in Boundless Realm to stay away from the traditional well-trodden path, constantly experimenting and trying out new things. And that proved the soundness of my approach — after all, I was able to find interesting locations, rare missions and unique objects, and that was precisely the kind of gameplay the Boundless Realm corporation wanted to see from its players. But the players, for the most part, were concentrated in large cities and were too lazy to leave the gates into the huge unknown world, instead trying to discover new things in locations checked thousands and thousands of times each day by other players.
I wrote out the speech, turned on the microphone and considered it. I was lacking a sense of finality, and satisfaction at a job well done. What was the purpose of telling my pursuers what a great guy I was if that didn't change the situation whatsoever? They'd still be hunting down and killing my goblin, and no words on the soundness of my method of obtaining the wyvern egg would change the end result of the great hunt — sooner or later, Amra would be caught and the trophy would be taken. But what if...
A thought came to mind that was utterly barbaric. Nevertheless, I didn't throw it out, and started thinking over the consequences. After all, the corporation hadn't truly stated any concise rules for the hunt yet, having considered such restrictions unnecessary and excessive. In the official announcement, the only thing communicated was the name of the victim, the requirements for the wyvern owner and the time for the whole mass-scale event. There was a serious slant to advertising support in this event. In that regard, the corporation had done gloriously, releasing stylish video clips, describing the value of the trophy and agitating the already-active player-base. In the opinion of the board of directors, the main thing was quickly occupying the minds of the indignant gamers and trying to draw them into an event they concocted on the fly, thinking they could handle all the questions and collisions that came up during the process.
But what if I said the upper management of the Boundless Realm corporation had gotten in touch with me to tell everyone the rules of the hunt, thus slightly correcting and adding to them to my advantage? After all, I would have millions of interested players watching me, and they would blindly believe anything I said, so any rules I stated would be perceived as official. And if I didn't especially dig myself a hole, but in fact described totally believable and beneficial additional conditions, the corporation would have a choice: quietly agree to them retroactively, or once again come up against millions of unhappy users.
Going out for a coffee, I thought over the speech for the next hour. The sentence, said as if in passing among the other information, should have been to the interest of the players, and would be taken positively by them, but at that I didn't want to worsen my runaway character's position, or cause financial issues for the corporation. Finally, I made up my mind, and put on the microphone helmet.
After telling them about the simple rules of the hunt and the valuable trophy, I mentioned that the flying wyvern would only drop for players who confirmed their participation in the event by registering in a special section of the official Boundless Realm website. All registered participants of the great hunt would get a special souvenir token in the form of an emerald green winged snake in flight, which could be obtained right there on the official site of the corporation for just ten game coins (how could it be any lower? that was just one credit in real life!).
The special property of the token, in my words, was to make a character's death cause half the experience loss it usually did — thus the corporation could count on stimulating the players to leave the stale, boring and safe cities and go off and explore Boundless Realm. By the end of the event, the token would lose this property and become just a nice memory, that could then be seen in their profiles.
Then, the total from the sale of the tokens would contribute to a prize fund for the whole great hunt, which was supposed to go to the wyvern owner, if they managed to escape (perhaps, this person would change periodically). It would be paid daily in proportion to the number of days that person managed to hold onto the wyvern. I gave particular emphasis to this point and asked the viewers if any of them seriously believed that such a responsible and legally scrupulous organization as the Boundless Realm Corporation would really just confiscate a valuable trophy from its owner given that it was obtained honestly, without giving anything in return.
I took another look over the speech, and was fully satisfied with the result. Sure, I didn't have any right to promise the players these new rules, but I did have a perfect understanding of the effect. Before the day was out, the corporation would be flooded with demands from the players wanting to officially register for the great hunt and get the attractive and useful token. What was more, it was already the very end of the work day. The leadership had already gone home and the forum admins were simply not able to stay on top of the situation. And that would lead to a repeated scenario: refuse millions of users and seriously upset them, or agree and take money from those who were desperate to part with it. It was no more than five minutes' work: create a section on the site to arrange for collection of clients' money.
Of course, I was taking a risk and might take a walloping on the head for taking things into my own hands. I could even have found myself flying out of work with a whistle for this. But for some reason, I was overcome with a foolhardy joy. The sea itself seemed knee deep to me now. The video clip uploaded, I got undressed and climbed right into the virtual reality capsule without entering the game.
* * *
I was awoken by a call on my cell phone. It was my sister. The clock on my phone showed that it was ten thirty at night.
"Timothy, where'd you disappear off to?! I've been calling you for an hour, but you won't answer!"
"Sorry, Val, I just fell asleep and didn't hear. What happened?"
"Oh, sure. The White Shark has reached the Island of the Wanton Widow, and is in raid position at the bay's exit. We didn't manage to catch up to the merchant before dark, but that might be for the best — they don't seem to have noticed us. It's a small, rocky island with very jagged cliffs on the shore. According to First Mate Ziabash Hardy, the bottom is very bad with submerged rocks and reefs all around. You need to know the channel to get into the bay. Tipsy Gannet is in safe harbor as expected. I ordered all lights on the White Shark extinguished so they wouldn't see us from shore. The weather is getting worse. The sky is cloudy. And now is the very time to decide what to do from here."
I answered my sister that I'd come in. Already preparing to turn off the phone, I discovered a balance increase message from my bank. I got four hundred credits, and it came with a note: "For exterminating corporate rats." I gave an involuntary chuckle — the first four unclean employees had been caught trying to slip players the coordinates of my big-eared goblin.
Before logging into the game, I went to the Boundless Realm forum. The biggest topic of discussion was, as I supposed, the delayed registration for the goblin hunt.
The players were actively demanding it, and the admins were giving vague answers, not really knowing what to do. The most sensible message i read from a corporate employee said that the patch with new rules was currently in testing, and there were a few bugs left to be fixed. So, the players were asked to remain patient and assured that the work was under way. Most importantly — none of the corporation's employees were denying my words, though there were no confirmations either. I suspected that the corporation was actively working to find the department or director responsible for promising all these new rules to the players.
I now had over two hundred unread messages in my mailbox, but I still couldn't find any time for them. It was nothing. Once I fired up the game, I'd take a look through as much of it as possible.
My goblin appeared in the captain's cabin, where I'd exited the game. In the room, there was a single tallow candle burning, and the weary wood nymph was sitting on a stool.
"So, where's the dryad?" I asked, pointing to the open box.
The mavka shuddered and nearly fell off the stool. It seemed my sister had been dozing off, and I had awoken her. I had to repeat my question.
"Angelica Wayward? At eight fifty-five the dryad said that she only played when it was light out, and that her work day was over. The ogre fortifier exited the game with her. From what I could understand of their conversation, Leon was planning to go visit Veronica's stylish new penthouse."
"And Max Sochnier also left?"
"Yeah. He said he needed to rest. But he promised he'd stay in his work cabin, and asked to be woken up if his help was needed."
Now that's better. If we planned a night-time excursion to the shore to rescue our NPC companions, we could fully count on the help of the naiad. It was too bad, though, that the titan would be unavailable — his strength and height might well prove necessary. But I fully understood Leon and had no complaints — the ogre fortifier had already been a big help last night and all day today with just a small break for a short nap. I couldn't possibly ask for more from the man — he was, after all, a living person and was allowed to have interests and plans outside our shared virtual world.
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