In his speech, Crayne accidentally touched on the subject I was extremely interested in.
“About quittin’ the game,” I said selecting my words with utmost discretion. “I’ve got a small issue here. Can’t seem to quit the game. You wouldn’t happen to know what the matter with that might be?”
Crayne stared at me for a second or two. Then he burst into a guffaw.
“What, this is your first online virtual game, isn’t?” He chuckled. “Playing my first MMO, way back when, I had such an ‘issue’ too. I kept playing the game on end, day after day. Just couldn’t bring myself to quit it. I didn’t care about the real life anymore. Totally forgot my family, friends, online school, and even my girlfriend.”
“You got me misinterpreted. I can’t quit the game literally. I’d be glad to do so but the Quit the game button won’t work.”
Crayne wasn’t laughing anymore. The player made an attempt to disguise his reaction, yet I was able to notice his features cloud for a moment.
“You mean you got stuck in the game? Trapped in here?” He inquired doubtfully.
“Seemed to be that way.”
“Quit putting me on!”
“I’m tellin’ the truth, dude.”
“Really? So you’re saying you’re trapped in the game? It’s impossible! Only the very first virtual games had such issues. And it was a few decades ago. Developers long since figured it out and fixed the problem. No such a problem was registered in more than fifty years. Players don’t get trapped in virtual games anymore.”
So he didn’t buy it. To prove my story to be true I lifted my left hand and looked at the crystal. Once the Main Menu appeared, I shifted my gaze toward the gray-colored Quit button. Sure enough, nothing happened.
“See?” I asked. “Does this convince you?”
“Nope. When one stares at the crystal, their menu is visible only to them. Other players can’t see it.”
I cussed under my breath.
“So you still don’t believe me?”
“Honestly? No.”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“Not a clue.”
There was a strained hush as we both went silent for a moment.
“Could you at least tell me what year it is now?”
“Don’t remember. Why? Anyway, if you’re so curious, just look up this in the Encyclopedia, there’s the History of the World tab, y’know.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about the game!”
“Then what about?”
“The outside world! What year is it in the real world now?”
Crayne grinned again but this time his smile looked shaky, insincere.
“Whatcha talking about? You got only level 2 so you must be playing the game for only two days, tops. So how could you forget the current year?”
I drew in a long breath and uttered, “Twenty-eighteen.”
“Come again?” The player’s brow furrowed.
“It’s the year two-thousand and eighteen.”
Crayne looked at me as if I were insane.
“This is patent nonsense. Are you nuts?”
“I mean it was twenty-eighteen before I found myself in this game. I visited a clinic, blacked out in there for some reason, and came around in this game, havin’ no clue as to how I’d ended up in here. Quittin’ the game won’t work. The button is gray-colored, that is to say, inactive. So I was transferred farther into the future and dumped in this game.”
A constrained silence fell over us again. Nobody said anything awhile.
“Do I have to put up with this bullshit?” Bigman opened his mouth for the first time. “Leave that freak alone already!”
“Keep your trap shut,” Crayne snapped at him, keeping his eye on me all the time.
“You don’t believe me, but I ain’t makin’ this up. My story’s true and––”
Crayne suddenly raised his assault rifle and pointed it at me.
“Enough is enough!” He said sharply. “I ain’t gonna put up with this any longer!”
“Finally,” Bigman muttered.
“So you’d better cut the crap,” Crayne said to me, ignoring Bigman. “Or else I’ll shoot you down!”
All this finally set my teeth on edge.
“Go ahead!” I shouted. “Shoot me if you want to. Do you think I really care about it? I don’t give a rat’s ass about this stupid game! All I want is find out how come I ended up in the game and why I cannot split it.”
I raised my voice without even noticing it and unintentionally took a step forward. Crayne instantly sprang backward and nearly yelled, “Stay back! I have no idea what you’re up to, what you’re trying to accomplish, but you best quit putting me on. No more mentions of your lame story or I’ll croak you, you hear?”
I had level 2 while Crayne level 10. Fighting him would surely result in his defeat of me. We both knew that for sure. Nevertheless, he acted like a yellow belly. He deemed me to be a total nut. You never know what to expect from a crazy. You never know what a downright psycho is capable of.
And it was obvious that Crayne considered me crazy. If I were to continue trying to make him believe my story, he’d surely gun me down despite him doing his best not to stain his reputation of being a nice guy who refrained from killing peace-loving players.
Yet it goes without saying that I might’ve acted the same way if I were in his shoes.
I regarded him for a spell. Once my wrath abated somewhat, I took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, forget everything I’ve just told you.”
“My pleasure.”
He lowered his weapon, the muzzle downcast now. But the player still eyed me in a suspicious way.
“So what have you wanted from me?” I asked the question that I’d posed at the very beginning of our conversation.
Judging from a puzzled expression plastered on his face, Crayne himself had already forgotten what reason he’d fetched me for. He then recollected.
“Oh yeah, I just wanted to know what you bear in your bag,” He replied. “In order to trade.”
“There’s only light armor and stuff like that. Only the green. Don’t think you need any of those considering the pretty big gap between our levels.”
“Doesn’t matter,” He said. Given a slightly nervous note in his voice, Crayne still didn’t forget that he was talking to a possible psycho. “Because I need not your items themselves but ingredients that could be extracted off them.”
Guess a perplexed expression appeared on my face since Crayne went on to explain further, “You probably didn’t learn yet that items could be taken apart in order to get ingredients they’re made up of, like chitin, metal, leather, you name it. But you have to unlock a particular skill in the Survival menu beforehand. So I’ve been hunting for all kinds of resources all morning long.”
“What do you need them for?” I asked although I already knew that one needed resources for creating various stuff, but I asked anyway because I wanted Crayne, much more experienced player, to elaborate on that to get some helpful hints.
“Ain’t it obvious? One needs recourses for crafting useful items of all sorts. You might as well go through skills in the Survival and Building menus. There lots of useful skills. Besides, one needs ingredients not only for creating new items but also for repairing the old ones. So even if you don’t need resources at the moment, you’d better gather them anyway. Sooner or later you’ll need them. There lots of players and only so many ingredients to go around in the game. So yeah. Think you get the idea.”
“All right, what can you offer me for my stuff?”
“You’re a Warlock, right? I’ve got a pretty sick pistol. I don’t need it, but you may like it. And in addition to the handgun, I can give you some money.”
“Well, guess I’ll take a look at the pistol.”
Crayne mentioned for Bigman to get the item. The big guy obeyed the given command, but rather unwillingly. I wondered whether he co
uld get rid of the slave collar somehow. Because it was lame if a player, who once was put a collar on, had to wear it and comply with another player’s orders all the time. Perhaps a slave collar lasted for a limited amount of time. If this was the case, then Crayne had better watch it. I wouldn’t want to be around when the slave collar expired and Bigman could do whatever he wanted.
Bigman dug into the backpack, pulled out the pistol, and showed it to me. It was the same Screamer I’d recently deposited in the Resurrection Pod. Probably the handgun Bigman holding in his hand had slightly different stats, but anyway, the pistol was “green”, i.e. uncommon, just like the Screamer of my own, and its level requirement was 5 as well.
“But I’m only level 2,” I said to Crayne doubtfully. “Can’t use it right now.”
“Sure you can’t. But you’ll level up to 5 in nothing flat. Especially now, when there’re few players online. I recommend you descend into the subway. Mutant rats dwell down there. They’re weak, yet there’re tons of them in there. You’ll get a few levels just in a couple of hours. By the way, it won’t take long to reach level 10 in this game. Just watch out for PKs.”
“Yeah. And one better watch out for night monsters swarmin’ the place as well,” I added.
“Right,” Crayne grinned crookedly. “So shall we trade? Like I said, I can give you some money as well. Guess fifteen thousand will do you very nicely.”
“How can one earn money, by the by? And where to spend them? I haven’t found any vendin’ machines yet.”
“You get money for quest competitions, event participation, that kind of stuff. As for vending machines, one of them is situated at the police station. Have it been marked on your map yet?”
I looked at the crystal to insult the map. Still, the police station was nowhere to be found.
“Nope.”
“Then what about the IMAX theater?”
I looked at the map once more and after a couple of seconds, found the said theater.
“Yep, it’s there.”
“There we go. Once there, make a left turn and head for Riverside until you reach the police station. There are street signs everywhere so you won’t get lost.”
“What exactly do vendin’ machines sell?”
“All kinds of stuff. Armor, weapons. However, more often than not one finds only inferior things there, the ‘white’ or ‘green’. ‘Blue’ items are rare for sale and one almost never finds a ‘purple’ thing for sale. Most players buy only ammo and first aid kits. By the way, if you haven’t known this yet, you got always money on you. I mean this is the only thing that you never lose after death. It really helps one out, y’know. So shall we trade now?”
It didn’t take me long to make my mind up. I already had the awesome biker armor set so I wasn’t particularly interested in keeping all those items in my bag.
“All right.”
Crayne handed me the pistol and looked at his Crystal. After a couple of moments, three bundles of bills leaped right from the player’s chest to dash through the air. They instantly disappeared once they touched me.
Three messages popped up one after another in the log.
> You’ve received money: 5000
> You’ve received money: 5000
> You’ve received money: 5000
“Truth be told, fifteen thousand don’t amount to much in this game,” Crayne grinned. “Ain’t all that large sum of money. However, it’ll be enough for a novice. At least for a few days, you won’t suffer from lack of ammo and first aid kits.”
I muttered something under my breath in reply and gave Crayne all “green” things I had in my bag. Not even bothering to examine the items’ stats, Crayne handed the items over to Bigman who then crammed them into his backpack, which already looked overstuffed.
I decided to ask Crayne about one more thing.
“How come are there so few players in the game now?”
“Because it’s the early hours of the morning,” Crayne shrugged his shoulders. “There’s always few players online in the mornings.”
“Can’t seem to grasp what this is tied to.”
“Really?” Crayne’s brow furrowed. “Well, tell me, how many nights have you gone through so far?”
“Only one.”
“Have you been able to hold out until the very morning? Or more likely, have you been killed at some point during the night? Most players, newbies at least, get killed at night because they don’t prepare for an invasion of night monsters properly.”
“The same goes with my night experience. I got ripped to pieces just after the night fell.”
“So tell me, what happened after you were killed?”
“Nothing special. I revived in a Resurrection Pod, as usual. But it was morning already.”
A hostile expression appeared on Crayne’s face and his teeth got bared in an unkind grin as he snarled, “Here we go again. You just can’t help but talk rot, huh?”
“I changed my mind,” Bigman spoke up for the second time. “He may be tellin’ the truth. He may actually have gotten trapped in the game. I don’t see any point in his makin’ this all up.”
“Nobody was asking for your opinion, meathead,” Crayne snapped at him. “Shut your trap if you don’t want to get electrocuted.”
Bigman shot him a sideways glance and said nothing more.
“Can you tell me what happens to a player dying at night?” I asked Crayne. But before he could give an answer to the question, I made an educated guess at it. “The player gets disconnected from the game, right? And they had to wait until after it’s the morning in here to reconnect to the game.”
“Exactly,” Crayne replied eyeing me angrily.
That weirded me out. I’d already learned that the game was still in Early Access, which meant it was presumably full of various bugs. Still, it wasn’t until now that I was starting to realize that I might’ve been some kind of a glitch myself. Not only wasn’t I able to quit the game manually, but also in terms of me, the game itself didn’t seem to comply with its own rules. That is to say, unlike all the other players, I couldn’t be disconnected from the game if died at some point at night.
“What reason was this done for?” I wanted to know.
“Where did you come from? Aldebaran 2?”
“No, I’m not from Aldebaran but from the pas––” I held my tongue. Crayne had already gotten his tits in a wringer and there was no point in pissing Crayne off any further. So I said instead, “I just don’t get it.”
“Firstly, such was the developers’ concept. A cruel game world, harsh conditionals for the survival. If you don’t bother to craft warm clothes or learn cooking skills, you’re dead. If you don’t prepare properly for the invasion of night mobs, you’re dead. Well, you get the idea. Second, do you aware that video game addiction was classified as a mental health disorder? Tons of teenagers hang out in virtual games around the clock, totally ignoring the real world, neglecting the online studying, and getting aggressive when barred from playing virtual games. Do you aware of it, don’t you? That’s a very grave social problem everyone’s talking about in the real world now. You can’t help but know about it. So everybody’s been trying to find a solution to the problem. The developers of this game contributed to it in their own way. If a player died at some point at night, they’re forced to leave the game for a few hours to deal with their chores in the real world, whether they like it or not. So yeah. That’s the reason. Think you got the idea.”
I wanted to ask something else, but Crayne beat me to it, “That’s it. I’m sick of your made-up stories and stupid questions already. There’re always numbers of assorted loot all over the city in the morning. Can’t spare you any more time. Other players will soon start connecting to the game. Have to beat them to as much loot as possible. See ya.”
Judging from his tone of voice, it was obvious that he wasn’t all that keen on seeing me or talking to me again anytime soon. His irritat
ed voice clearly indicated that Crayne considered me to be a downright crazy, a nut to the full. He might even tell his friends the story of encountering a whacko claiming to be a time traveler who got trapped in the game.
The unpleasant hearsay might spread fast. If I were known as a complete psychopath, nobody would be intent on striking up a conversation with me. On the other hand, there might be an altogether different turn of events. If the developers or any other responsible people became aware of the player trapped in the game, they hopefully would do their best to figure it out and might even be able to actually get me out of the game.
Still, I didn’t allow such thoughts to build up false hopes. It would impossible to tell in what way events would unfold. Crayne had found it quite unpleasant, offensive even, to talk to me. So what if Crayne disliked me to such an extent that he didn’t even want to remember about our conversation, much less tell his friends about me? If that was the case, then the word wouldn’t spread and nobody would know about the player who got stuck in the game.
Crayne walked away with Bigman tagging along after him. Crayne glanced back over his shoulder every now and then as if he wanted to make sure that I didn’t dog him. Turning away from them, I raised my left hand and looked at the crystal. I might as well go over to the police station to find the aforementioned vending machine and check it out.
After consulting the map, I set off.
Chapter three
Mobs would charge at me from time to time. I would take them out with my pistol. By the time I made it to the police station, I even leveled up to 3. I assigned the points into the skills I had last time. So I could build a fire pit again, cook mosquito meat, and utilize the Acceleration psi-power.
There was such a mess inside the police station, the walls covered in cracks and the ceiling given way. Large chunks of concrete and pieces of ruined furniture lay all over the room. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to pick my way through the debris, for the vending machine sat at the very entrance.
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