by G. Akella
Upon awakening fifteen minutes ago, I'd munched on a cracker and washed it down with water, and was now sitting on the ground, leaning against a warm boulder, silently surveying my environment—the only comparison that came to mind was an African savanna in dry season. As far as the eye could see sprawled a slightly hilly plain—vacant stretches of yellow-brown grass alternated with copses and dense shrubbery. A little over a mile to the west lay a small mountain formation and a tall hill, the road to it covered with the same withered grass. Herds of animals grazed there—barely visible at this distance, there was no way to make out the species.
Somehow the landscape was at odds with the zone's name—Demon Grounds. Where were the erupting volcanoes? The cracks in the ground that stretched for miles, with molten lava splashing out? Where was the ash raining down from the crimson skies? The developers must know better, I supposed.
I had absolutely no desire to go anywhere or do anything. Nor did I have the opportunity to. About sixty feet away I glimpsed a non-aggressive critter that resembled a beaver with a pig's snout stirring in the grass. The sign above it read: level 16 Gopher. Damn! In this zone, even a mouse would kill me with one bite. How much time did I have left here—five, six hours? It appeared that I'd slept almost a full day. With another mental wish for Cheney and his jackals to rot in hell, I tried not to think about my future. Looking for a distraction, I opened my character menu.
Sorcerer Krian, level 1.
Race: human [demon].
Agility: 10.
Strength: 6.
Constitution: 1.
Vigor: 1.
Spirit: 1.
Intellect: 1.
HP: 10.
Energy: 10.
Mana: 10.
Armor: 20.
Magic resistances: none against water, none against air, none against earth, none against fire, 75% against mental, 1% against dark, none against nature, 1% against light.
Passive skills. Toughness: 31%.
Bonus to physical damage with swords: +2%.
Bonus to heavy armor: +2%.
Relations with other races: Humans—hostile, Elves—hostile, Orcs—hostile, Dark Elves—hostile, Dwarves—hostile, Drow—hostile, Demons—hostile.
I chuckled. Being both human and demon at once, I enjoyed the negative reputations of both.
Were my character simply human, I would have neutral relations with elves and dwarves, and hostile relations with dark elves, drow and orcs. I had no idea about demons, since their race hadn't been patched in yet. I was the first among demon players, even if I wasn't really a demon at all.
It didn't escape my attention that one of my passive skills was definitely overpowered. In fact, under normal circumstances, any caster would sell their soul to the devil to be able to wear heavy armor. Only it didn't matter much to me. I had no heavy armor to wear—my robe, trousers, boots and novice's belt would hardly qualify. The filthy rags that passed for gear, totaling 20 armor, my novice's staff with 5-9 damage that looked a rake shaft, two crackers and a quarter-full water flask in my bag—these were all my worldly possessions.
When the sun had nearly set beyond the mountain range, a rider came galloping out from behind a hill and, spurring his horse, guided it in the direction of the blasted village directly behind me. A moment later five mobs—seemingly in the canine family, though nearly the size of his horse—were already hot on his trail. Quite a frightening sight if you didn't know it was all virtual. It was all over in about twenty seconds—the pack leader caught up to the horse and lunged at its throat, toppling the mount along with its human rider, or rather demon since there couldn't have been any humans in this zone. Shivers ran down my spine as the horse roared in agony and the rider wailed as he was devoured alive. The beasts ate in silence, finishing their meal in less than five minutes. Once they were done, as they were leaving the site of their late dinner, one of them glanced in my direction, its eyes a pair of crimson flares in the moonlight. The pups made a menacing sight, somehow resembling Dobermans. I couldn't make out their name and level from here, but I was willing to bet it was in the high hundreds.
Suddenly the skies grew dark and the ground shook, then dozens of branchy bolts of lightning sundered the gathering dusk. The sentries at the gate grabbed their pole-axes leaning against the palisade, and looked up anxiously at the sky. The earth shifted under my feet, tossing me into the air with such power that I fell back down totally disoriented. There was a crash coming from the village, followed by screams. The palisade bent in half, and one of the gate doors collapsed to the ground. In the west, an electric discharge of titanic proportions hit the peak of the highest mountain, splintering off huge chunks of rock.
The picture faded.
That was it—my time had come to an end. I felt a chill come over with me, thinking of what lay ahead. Seconds passed, but nothing was happening. A software malfunction, perhaps? Suddenly I felt a shock, as if hit by electric current. I twitched with pain and must have lost consciousness.
I came to in the same spot as before—on the ground next to the gravestone, my staff lying nearby. I sat up, mechanically dusting off my soiled sleeve, and stared at the stream of system messages.
Attention all players! The latest system patch 17 is now live in the Realm of Arkon!
New planes and game zones have been added to the game: Divine Planes, Gray Frontier, Netherworld, Demon Grounds, Lemuria and Pangea.
New gods have entered this world, and with them new species of creatures, animals and plans. Explore the new frontier to find new secret quests, artifacts, epic items and gear sets, as well as rare resources.
New active and passive skills have also been added, including new professions...
The players' sensations have been improved to total, 100% immersion. Some can be reduced by raising certain skills. For instance, pain sensitivity can be reduced to 20% by leveling the Toughness skill...
Changes to game mechanics:
...The system of reputation accrual has been revised, but the reputation values already achieved with various factions and societies, races and gods have been preserved...
...All active and passive skills have been reset to allow every player to allocate their skill points strategically...
...Unique and hidden skills and abilities achieved during gameplay have been preserved and left unchanged...
...The dynamics of death have been revised. Now, players will resurrect at their bind point after 6 hours. The time it takes for player corpses to rot has been increased from 5 days to 15...
...The perception of the world among NPCs has been heightened.
A death penalty of 20% of a player's levels has been instituted, though the player will not fall below level 13. Furthermore, all passive and active skills and defenses will remain on the previous level, while the player's top stat will be reduced by 3 for each level lost. The player can recover the lost stat points by regaining the previous level, but a new talent point will only be gained upon reaching a previously unattained level. If killed by another player, prior to resurrection the deceased can change their bind point to any previous bind point...
...Due to planar rifts from the Netherworld and the Gray Frontier, permanent portals between capital cities no longer function properly. All game characters on the Karn Continent have been sent back to their factions' starting cities...
...From here on, communication in the game is limited to mail. Mail correspondence between members of non-hostile races is only possible after a permanent portal between the capital cities has been established...
To help in completing group quests, when players join a party or a raid, the voices of raid leaders, officers and party leaders are magically amplified. The leaders are also granted the ability to communicate mentally...
...To create a teleportation portal, players are required to visit the same place again...
...Players can still call each other by phone...
...Invite their friends and acquaintances into the ga
me...
...The Wikipedia button on the display has been renamed "Chronicles," and its information is constantly being updated...
...The game forum has been shut down...
...The Logout and Contact the Administration buttons have been removed from the options menu as unnecessary.
RP-17 Sage wishes you happy gaming.
I stared in stupor at the creeping lines of information, struggling to decide if it was me who'd lost his sanity or RP-17, an AI?
What lunacy was this? Divine planes, Lemuria... Had the devs lost their goddamned minds? I checked the options—Logout and Contact the Administration were indeed gone from the menu. How was this possible? There was a mention of using the phone... I opened the phone call option and nearly squealed with joy—it was working! Only, damn, I had not a penny on me, or rather not a gold coin. I realized immediately what an idiot I was—911 was always free. I had to seize this unexpected chance. The call would be placed from my physical cell phone, even if it was turned off. I only hoped those twats didn't toss it somewhere along the way.
"Nine one one, what is your emergency?" asked a woman's voice with concern—how did they pull off this concern day in and day out? At any rate, to me, her voice was a divine revelation. I launched into describing my situation as succinctly as possible.
"The call has been traced, a patrol car will be on location in about four minutes. Please remain on the line." Easy listening music began playing in the virtual phone.
I got up off the ground and stretched, letting the breeze brush my face. You're done, Cheney, you ass! I thought to myself. Then I got comfortable, put my noob staff on my knees, and set to watching the earthquake-shaken village, its residents swarming like ants on a disturbed ant hill. Two sentries and five more men that had run up to help were desperately trying to put the gate door back in place, shouting and swearing all the while.
Perhaps now I wouldn't even need to quit my job. And I wouldn't need to hide any longer. What was happening with me in real life? A broken jaw, a concussion? At least I was alive—that mattered above all else.
It had been half an hour—what was taking them so long! They should have no trouble recognizing my maimed carcass with all the equipment the cops had nowadays. No need to look for documents—simply point a small device at the person, and a global computer immediately spits out all their info. Naturally, some people were frothing at the mouth about the country becoming a police state, but for many ordinary citizens the trade-off was worth their peace of mind.
I kept waiting. The demons had already put the gate back together and had moved on to the palisade. An enormous moon had crawled out onto the sky amid the faintly glimmering stars, and it got a bit chilly. Finally, the hold music stopped.
"Captain Greg Ward, San Fransisco police," spoke a tense male voice. "Introduce yourself."
"Roman Kozhevnikov," I had already given my name to the operator. "What is going on? When will my body be recovered?"
"You claim that Adam Walker Cheney's people abducted you in the neighborhood of Market Street," the cop ignored my questions, "delivered you to an unknown place where Cheney beat you, allegedly breaking your jaw. Then, you were placed in a game capsule linked to the Realm of Arkon. Do I have that right?"
"Yes! Now, tell me what's happening! Did you find me?" I yelled into the virtual phone.
"Currently we have six police squads in Mr. Cheney's country estate, as well as twelve ambulances," the officer's voice sounded weary. "In the basement, we have found fifty four dead bodies in game capsules: Cheney himself, his three bodyguards, and fifty more people, out of which so far thirty nine have been identified. One of the identified bodies is one Roman Kozhevnikov, citizen of the Russian Federation, born in 2006."
"Are you saying that I'm dead?" I muttered, dumbstruck. "But I... I'm talking to you right now!"
"I'm not saying anything, but we do have hundreds of similar cases in the Bay area alone, and thousands nationwide. Leave your contact information with the operator, and we'll be in touch. And now you must excuse me, I need to get back to work."
Easy listening music came back on, and I hung up. What friggin' contact information? Lamorna Village, Eastern Wastes, Jarus Province, Ashtar Dominion that's in Demon Grounds. Look for me by a gravestone at a local cemetery. You can't miss me—there are six stones in all. And, oh, I'm dead. So, you know, no rush. Talk soon! I took a deep breath. Cheney did mention that people had lost their minds from dying so much, so maybe... I pinched myself. It hurt! The multiplication table popped into my head.
How do you test if you've lost your marbles? If a horse tells you that you're crazy, then surely you are, I remember the old gag. There was a horse around not too long ago, but it was eaten by a pack of dog-like beasts. I could always ask the demons repairing that palisade over there. Recognizing the idiocy of my predicament, I couldn't hold back a smile. That settles it. A crazy person wouldn't be contemplating his madness.
And then it hit me: I'm dead! But that's... that's... I began to shake from the implications. Then I sat still for about five minutes, staring at a crack on a nearby monument, completely oblivious to my surroundings, but eventually reason prevailed. Stop! I yelled at myself. I'm having thoughts, so I must be alive. And I don't give a damn that this is a game, and not real life. I was just speaking to a cop, and, last I checked, corpses are not speech capable. Although, in a video game, some are... Wait, what the hell am I saying! Calm down, breathe! Everything's fine. I'm not a loon and I'm not a corpse. This must all be some kind of misunderstanding. Somehow I've been imported into the game, so let's roll with it.
So, what have we got? I opened my character's window. No changes from before... Wait, what about immortality? I'm immortal now! the realization washed over me, and I froze still, trying to digest it. I'll figure that part out later. What else? My relations with all of Arkon's factions is hostile; their NPCs would kill me on sight. There are no players here, no quest-givers, and I cannot level on these mobs. Well, I can technically, but not in this zone. There didn't appear to be a solution. How many miles was it to the closest starting zone? Two hundred? Five? I would need to run from graveyard to graveyard, dying hundreds of times along the way.
The hatred that filled me for Cheney at that moment seemed almost capable of materializing in physical form.
That shithead! Lousy bastard! If not for RP-17, I'd be dying again, or worse. If only you were here, Cheney, you scum! But I'm going to live, you'll see! I will survive! And when I get out of here, I'm going to find you and your cronies and rip out your throats! After all, I know how to find you...
I forced myself to calm down. What did I know about reputation? Some of the game's social and military communities were a faction unto themselves, irrespective of race. Traders' and mages' guilds, knight orders, mercenary squads and various brotherhoods. As a rule, everybody started off neutral with them, unless, of course, your character's race or class was specifically targeted by this particular foundation. A dark mage visiting a Temple of Myrt—a light deity of the human race—would be a fool to expect a warm welcome. Demons looked to have their own social order, so, on the face of it, not all was lost.
There was no use continuing to hang around gravestones—I had to start doing something. Ah! The rider devoured by the dogs earlier—the remains were some seven hundred yards from here. Looking through them, I might avail myself of something useful.
I made it to the remains of the rider and his horse without incident. Lasting at least a quarter mile, the road was narrow but even, and I came across no aggressive animals. Only the familiar gophers were around, casting glances of contemplative loathing at the ragged human plodding down the road.
Still a dozen yards away, I could already smell blood, and when I saw what had remained of the rider and his horse, my stomach nearly turned inside out. Chunks of meat, bones with teeth markings, scraps of fur, entrails and some other matter scattered across a radius of ten or so yards. And all that was punctuated by the mo
st revolting stench of wet fur. No complains on the realism front, I thought to myself.
I had never experienced anything like it before. I was far from a hardcore gamer—my level thirty five had been achieved in three days when I and three other coworkers were powerleveled across several noob locations. On my own, I had only reached level ten in Still Creek. In fact, my last quest was about a horse that had wandered off and had ultimately been killed by wolves. I had to locate the dead horse, remove its harness and deliver it to the local groom. The groom then gave the quest to exterminate the wolves. Compared to what I was seeing now, that horse might as well have been borrowed from a G-rated movie: carcass lying neatly next to a pool of blood, the animal's entire front side virtually untouched, and no smell to speak of. But this... Struggling to hold back nausea, I touched what had remained of the demon.
A ringing sound signaled the falling of coins in my bag. Whoa—1 gold, 4 silver and 25 copper. Also, two sealed letters, a chained badge, and a cloak. What did we have here... I focused my eyes on the badge and nearly squealed with joy.
Courier's Chest Badge.
Unusual item.
Raises the negative attitude of all sentient races in Demon Grounds to unfriendly. Any positive reputation held with representatives of sentient races remains unchanged.
Always warring at one another, dominions resort to using special messengers to carry out postal correspondence. These couriers can be recognized by a special badge worn on their chests, and attacking them unprovoked in Demon Grounds is strictly forbidden.
A typical metallic circle three inches in diameter without any special attributes, a glyph inscribed along the side and somebody's strange face at the center, but for me this piece of metal trumped any epic artifact! It must have been the governing AI giving me a way out of a dead-end situation. After all, everything in the Realm of Arkon was done for the players, or at least for their money. I wasted no time putting the chain on my neck. The badge locked into the amulet slot, which had been empty until now (and would probably have remained empty for the foreseeable future).