by G. Akella
This time I never was given a choice—everything had changed without my involvement, and it was all I could do to try and survive, adapt to this new environment. These were my thoughts as I approached the village gates. I felt no animosity toward its residents. What use was it to hold a grudge against NPCs that were simply playing out the behavior model programmed into them?
"Where do you come from and where are you headed, handsome stranger?" smiled a young sentry, looking pointedly at my rags and stick.
"Easy there, Rhon," his older partner chimed in, "before the esteemed mage turns you into a toad for your crude manners. You'll be croaking at passersby."
"Oh, forgive me, esteemed mage! What brings your illustrious self to our Hart-forsaken hole?" These two were probably bored to tears, so they were milking the situation for all it was worth.
The sentries looked identical to regular humans: two hands, two feet, perfectly human facial expressions, and if I hadn't already witnessed demons assume combat form in the span of an instant... The odd thing was that they reacted to me as a demon as well. If they had recognized me as a human, their questions would be different, though I was safe either way with my neutral reputation.
"I came to nearby with no memory of what happened," I shrugged. "I'm a courier, headed to Nittal."
The older one squinted at the symbol hanging on my chest and nodded.
"Go on in, then, courier. Go see Vellakh—he knows when the next caravan will be arriving."
"Who is Vellakh and where do I find him?" I asked.
"He's the local elder," said the sentry. "Keep straight. See the yellow building six houses past the inn?" He pointed at a huge stone structure some two hundred yards away. There's an enclosure behind it, he should be right inside. You'll know him when you see him."
"Thanks," I nodded and entered the open gates.
When I had first spawned in this world, I had hardly the time to gawk at the surroundings. So it was only now that I realized that Lamorna wasn't a village at all, but more like an outpost, judging by the abundance of armed soldiers. Of course, there were also peasants and farmers, grubby kids playing in the streets, women with pails hanging around a well, roosters crowing and other poultry adding to the general cacophony. Still, for the life of me I couldn't figure out what the farmers were actually growing. There were no fields in sight. The cattle amounted to a single yak—in the enclosure I'd come to know very well. Coming closer, I saw in the same enclosure four regular cows. It was with these thoughts of the local population's involvement in agriculture and husbandry that I reached the desired building.
"Where do you think you're going?" a demon stepped out from under an awning's shade, his full suit of armor clinging with every moment, his shield displaying the muzzle of some scowling beast. His face bore clear signs of last night's merriment through the open visor.
"To Vellakh the elder. I was told he's around here somewhere."
"The elder, you say," the demon snorted. "Go on, then. The elder is behind the building," he motioned me to go around the structure. Yelling and the clanging of metal were coming from that direction.
Rounding the building, I came upon a training site at which a dozen or so soldiers in full armor were sparring with some kind of sticks.
"Feet! Watch your feet placement! I've seen pregnant broads handle shoulder yokes more elegantly!" bellowed a black-haired man in leather breeches. Barechested, his lean, sinewy muscles were on full display.
I watched them train for a little while. Upon realizing that my desire to eat, drink and sleep trumped even my curiosity, I spoke up:
"Are you Vellakh the elder?"
The training session stopped at once. There were a few chuckles, as the black-haired instructor turned slowly toward me.
"Did you say something, you Hart's ass?" he asked insinuatingly, with notes of tenderness that immediately made me feel ill at ease.
"I'm a courier, and I need to get to Nittal," I shrugged. "The soldiers at the gates said that Vellakh the elder would know when to expect the caravan."
There were more chuckles.
"The soldiers at the gates, eh," the man's voice promised nothing good for the aforementioned soldiers' immediate future. "I'm no elder," Vellakh continued, his finger tracing the scar running across his right cheek. "Who are you? And what the Hart do you want from me?"
I repeated my version about losing my memory.
"A courier, eh," the demon shook his head. "In that case, the caravan will be here the day after tomorrow. If you don't have any money, you can sleep in the barracks."
I politely declined (I'd spent more than enough nights in the barracks back in my day), said my goodbyes and started toward the inn.
"Why are you still standing there, you lizards? Heads stuck in your asses? Pick up from exercise three..." blackhair's roar restarted the learning process that had been interrupted by my arrival.
Lamorna's inn was called The Genteel Legionnaire, though its sign—a husky fellow grinning from ear to ear with two dames pressed up to each side—would be better suited for an enlistment office. I wondered what he was so happy about, since the chicks at his sides were actually pretty scary. Perhaps it was the two mugs of beer that he held in each hand—the anticipation of getting drunk as a hog, way past the point of giving a hoot about their beauty? Or, better yet, that through all his past drunken brawls he'd managed to preserve all his pearly whites?
The front door creaked, and I found myself inside a fairly large hall. The place wasn't empty despite the early hour: a merchant (going by his garb) with a retinue of guards were breakfasting at a far table, while four peasants were sitting by the window, conversing quietly over mugs of murky whitish liquid that looked suspiciously like moonshine, refilling it from a pitcher perched atop their table.
"Greetings, Kort," I addressed the dour-faced innkeeper behind the counter, reading his name. "I need a room for two nights, and some food."
The innkeeper was bald, and his ears and horns were on display in full splendor.
All the demons I had encountered thus far had horns. In some, they were small cone-like growths in the temple areas; in others, like the innkeeper, they were around four inches long and curved slightly backwards. The colors ranged from beige to pitch black. The ears—peaked at the top—were more orcish than elvish in shape.
The innkeeper was level 241, the highest I'd seen in Lamorna yet. Even Vellakh was only 220. The innkeeper's grey horns were probably also the largest I'd seen today. Could the horn size be somehow reflective of the NPC's level? By the looks of him, Kort was in his early forties with a grim, weatherbeaten face, a scar across his right cheek, a silver earring of two crossed bones, and a pair of piercing brown eyes with vertical pupils. He'd look more in place swinging a rapier on the deck of a pirate ship than wiping mugs in a backwater inn, I thought to myself.
In the meantime, the innkeeper favored me with his morose gaze.
"One gold per night. Food is included, but drink isn't. No hitting on the waitresses. Women won't be in till evening," he growled and returned to his somber thoughts. Well, one hundred bucks a night certainly wasn't cheap. But it wasn't surprising either—the higher the location, the higher the lodging costs. I laid two coins on the table, and the innkeeper handed me a key.
"Wait here for yesterday's meal to be heated. Your room is No. 3 on the second floor. Don't worry, you won't get lost."
About five minutes later, a comely waitress brought me a plate of vegetables with meat, a crust of bread and a mug of beer. Having devoured the food, I headed upstairs with a pleasant fullness in my belly.
It was possible to abstain from eating and drinking in Arkon for some time, depending on your character's spirit. The sensation of satiety lasted one day, whereupon the player was hit with a hunger or thirst debuff that caused increasing periodic damage to constitution, mana and vigor. For as long as your regeneration compensated for this damage, you remained alive. It was therefore important to eat at least once a day
in the game; not that there was a single good reason to endure constantly worsening hunger and thirst in the first place.
Having made my way to room No. 3, I put the key in the keyhole. The door—wooden and scratched up in spots—flung open and I stepped inside.
You are in your private room. This is your private space—
I dismissed the message with a wave, collapsed on the narrow bed with plain-looking linens, and passed out the next instant.
I woke up at night, and it took me a while to work out where I was. When the events of the past three days finally surfaced in my mind, I swore softly, climbed off the bed and turned on a magic lantern. Casting a skeptical look around the room, I opened the Settings menu. Fifteen minutes and five gold coins later, the room's appearance was made to look as close as possible to my own room in the real world. My former room, I corrected myself with a sigh. The television set was gone, but the computer remained, though its functions were limited to reading chronicles or wikipedia, to use the old language. The clock showed 1:00 AM, but I had three matters to attend to: one important; one important and tedious but necessary; and one pleasant. First things first.
My sister's phone wasn't answering. Could she have changed her number? But then why wouldn't she tell me? Seeking answers, I dialed my former classmate and neighbor.
The call was answered almost right away, as a sharp familiar voice said:
"Hello?"
"Max, hey! Can you talk?"
"Roman?! Is that you? Where are you calling from?" There was something about my childhood friend's tone I really didn't like.
"That's... a long story," I paused, considering how to deliver the news to a person who wasn't the least bit a gamer. "I'm inside a video game. Look, man, I know it sounds crazy, but..." I hesitated, "I died in the real world. Please don't hang up! I can explain everything!"
"No need to explain, I already know," Max replied grimly. "Where exactly in the game are you?"
"Huh?" to say that my friend's question surprised me was to say nothing at all. "I'm in a new zone, it's hard to explain... Why do you ask?"
Listen up," he completely ignored my question. "User name Tauriel, dark elf druid. As of right now, she's level 21. Did you get that?"
"Yes, but what does that..." I started, but then it hit me. "Alyona?! But she doesn't play!" I screamed into the phone.
"Apparently, she does, Roman," Max said with a sigh, then continued with haste and concern in his voice. "She called yesterday afternoon, said she couldn't log out of the game. So Sergei—my cop friend, you remember him—we kick in the door and... And she calls again. There's an ambulance, doctors scurrying around. I pick up and she asks me what's happening? I must have turned gray there and then. Then I logged in... The count is already over thirty million people from around the world! It's mind-boggling! More and more people keep leaving, then calling and saying everything is fine. And Sage—that crystal or whatever—it's completely vanished. I saw it reported on the news."
"Hold up!" I bellowed into the phone, interrupting my typically taciturn friend's verbal torrent. "What exactly did she say?"
"That she's all right. She was shocked at first, obviously... But took consolation in the fact that she'd made herself a size C. Crazy, right? She asked me to tell you that she's fine, that she tried reaching you but couldn't. I had the presence of mind to get her username and all that. Oh, and another thing. Your Aunt Tanya came by. She's the only living relative you've got, right? What do I tell her?"
"Tell her the truth."
"Tell me your username, and how to find you," Max's voice became strangely even.
"Krian, and I'm stuck in Demon Grounds. It's a plane that hasn't been unlocked yet, which means no one can reach me until I get out of here. Alyona knows my username, but getting through to me here is problematic," I said.
"This isn't for her, but for me," Max clarified. "Our firm had gone belly up, I've been out of a job for half a year now. Masha left me. Now I'm all alone, like you guys... So I've made a decision."
"You?! But you've never..." I couldn't even finish my thought.
"So? Besides, who's going to bail you two out of trouble if not me?" my schoolmate grunted. "I bought a capsule three months ago. With no job and nothing to do... There it is now," he said, as if I could see it. "Well, Roman. Till we meet in the next life."
"Wait! Who are you going to be? How do I find you?"
"Oh, you'll find me! While you're off making mischief as usual, someone has got to look after your sister! This narrows my options down to one—dark elves. I'm a little scared, sure... What if something goes wrong? But I don't see another way. Take care, Roman. I'll go tell your Aunt Tanya, and then..."
"Take care, my friend," I managed to say before hearing dial tone.
I sat there for fifteen minutes, staring at a single spot on the floor. Alyona and I were eight years apart. Seven years ago, when only the two of us were left in the world, it took great efforts on my part to bring her back to her senses, make her finish high school and go to college. She was both wiser and more prudent than me, and I knew she would be all right. So now I had another goal—to find my sister. And this goal was more important than smashing the face of a certain douchebag.
What's going on in Karn? I wondered. Thirty million people pulled into Arkon. I couldn't even conceive what things were like over there. Oh well, I had problems of my own to deal with. I sat at the desk and adjusted the monitor to comfortable height. I had to do something about my talents. With no forums at my disposal to do research, I had to figure things out on my own.
Talents and skills were at the foundation of every RPG, and their correct selection and application determined the viability of your character as a whole. I opened up the Talents menu and nearly flipped. As a warrior, I couldn't be bothered worrying about this stuff. When I was being powerleveled, I would simply throw five points into stats that seemed important, select the necessary skills and talents, and move on.
To reiterate, I never was much of a gamer. I had my own place, a nice ride, a good salary and plenty of attention from women. I never had any reason to cheat on reality with a virtual life, unlike folks with limited physical capabilities, students with their extremism and perpetual lack of money, and those who worked in the industry.
For me, sitting on my rear for hours on end killing cartoon enemies, no matter how realistically they may be rendered... Thanks, but no thanks.
Now, however, for those who found themselves in the game, this was the new reality. The pain was real, as was the blood, and I could only guess what other surprises Sage had conceived for the rest of us. The fact was that I had died on the outside; this was now my life, and I had to find my sister and kick in a few nasty skulls. I also wanted to lead a normal life in this world, which meant I had to become strong. I looked through my talents once again. Mages had thousands of them, from the ability to conjure up a banal arrow of ice to powerful earthquakes. Virtually every skill could be bolstered with additional talent points, multiplying its effect many times over.
I fell in thought, searching for a very specific, practical solution for my predicament. I was currently level 67, which, to be honest, was handed to me on a silver platter. And sure, no one I knew would have consciously accepted such a "gift," but that was all in the past. In the present, I was level 67 with the ability to wear and a 2% bonus to heavy armor. I wasn't taking Altus' gifts into account—the game was full of hidden quests, and bonuses like 5% to all spells and 95% resistance to mental magic could be achieved by any player, at least in theory. On the other hand, I was probably the only mage in the game with the ability to wear plate. All I had to do was figure out how to best use that to my advantage.
Let's suppose that, going forward, leveling was no longer going to be a free ride—I would need to earn every level the old-fashioned way, grinding it out. From what I remembered from exchanges with the guys from my department, getting to level 100 took four to six months of playing almost around the cloc
k. And it got even harder from there. The maximum level a player could achieve was 234, and that took four years of playing.
Now, it just so happened that now I was flush with time. On the other hand, I was in a closed zone, which portended no raids in the foreseeable future, and the archmage's epic quest had to be an exception. The strategy then was clear: ignore all the talents designed to bolster the raid, meaning all the spells that took time to cast. Sure, they hit harder, but casting time meant the spell could be blocked or interrupted, and the caster himself became vulnerable. Building up focus—the skill that made it possible to continue casting through incoming damage—wasn't an attractive option at this degree of pain sensitivity. Raid buffs were equally useless with no one to buff.
I also knew that the game was designed to preserve balance among players. This meant that if you took two players roughly equal in level, gear and talent allocation, the two characters would be pretty similar in terms of power. I was hardly an expert in theorycraft, but I had a rough idea just the same.
I put two characters up on the screen—warrior and mage, both level 101, and gave both similar equipment of rare items. The mage got a cloth set with a pair of rings and a level 100 amulet: +50 to constitution and +50 to intellect. Accordingly, the warrior was given plate, +50 to constitution and +50 to strength. Ignoring the 20 base stats given at creation, let's suppose that for every three points the warrior put one in strength and another in constitution, and the mage in constitution and intellect. Then there were the class bonuses: +1 to spirit and +1 to intellect for the mage, +1 to constitution and +1 to strength for the warrior. For the warrior, let's pick talents focused on two-handed weapons, and let's make the mage specialize in water magic. The warrior's best attack at level 100 was Heroic Strike; for the mage, it was Ice Spear. The warrior got a level 100 two-handed sword of unusual quality, and the mage—the staff equivalent.