Spellcraft

by Andrew Beymer

  The grin that crossed his face was cruel, but then again that was about what I expected from this prick.

  My eyes darted behind Trent. I saw a few people I’d been hoping would show up materializing out of the crowd. Suddenly I felt a hell of a lot better about my chances in this fight.

  “I’ll ask you again," I said. "Are you sure you want to do this?”

  "Yes I'm sure I want to do this!” Trent shouted and he took a swing.

  I couldn't chalk the dodge I pulled up to the videogame. It's not like I’d been working on dodge skills, but somehow I managed to get out of the way and felt the wind from the punch hitting my face rather than the punch itself.

  I probably just got lucky that Trent had so obviously telegraphed his punch. Anyone could’ve dodged that thing, but I was well aware I wasn't going to be able to keep dodging those punches. At least not for long.

  "What the hell are you doing Colin?” Kara shouted. "This isn't like in the game! If he hurts you here you don’t get to die and resurrect!”

  She moved towards us again like she was going to do something, but Kris grabbed her shoulders and held her back. Good. At least Kris still remembered the cardinal lesson, even if we weren’t in a videogame right now.

  "Damn it Kris," Kara said, struggling against her. "Don't hold me back! I'm going to kill that motherfucker!”

  I didn't doubt that she’d try to kill Trent if she could get her hands on him, but she didn't have to try. Trent raised his fist for another punch, but an even bigger and beefier hand grabbed him by the wrist which made it difficult for him to land any sort of punch.

  I cracked a smile for the first time since the whole fight had started. It was a relieved smile. Four beefy guys from the football team, all of them linebackers which I understood meant they were big and fast, appeared out of the crowd. These were all guys who looked like they did nothing but spend time in the weight room.

  Trent was obviously well built, but he wasn't built like a linebacker. These guys looked like walking slabs of pure muscle. One of them cracked his knuckles as he scowled at Trent.

  "This guy giving you trouble Colin?” a guy named Trevor asked.

  "Of course he is," I said. “Told you he’d try something.”

  "What's the matter Trent?" another one, Liam, said. "Can't handle getting your ass kicked in a game so you're going to try and take it out of the game? That's not very fair."

  “Thanks for the assist,” I said with a smile. “But now that he’s not trying a surprise attack I think I’ve got this.”

  “You sure, man?” Trevor asked.

  “Positive,” I said.

  “What the hell are you doing, Colin?” Kara hissed.

  “Yeah, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Trent asked, looking down at me like he didn’t think I was going to pull anything. “I’d like to see you try and punch me.”

  “Oh don’t worry on that score,” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to punch you.”

  “That’s what I thought, you little weakling,” Trent said. “You always have to have other people fight for you, you… motherfucker!”

  He screamed and sank to his knees as I darted forward and placed my foot square between his legs. Once he was down on his knees looking up at me, inarticulate groans escaping his lips as tears came down from his eyes, I stepped forward and grabbed his hair.

  “I said I wasn’t going to punch you,” I said with a wink. “I didn’t say anything about fighting fair.”

  I looked up at the crowd all around us, then to Kara and Kris. I hit them with a wink. Kara stared on in astonishment, but Kris merely shook her head and rolled her eyes. She’d been along for the fun often enough that she’d probably suspected where this was going before it even started.

  “This looks kinda familiar, doesn’t it?” I asked, looking down at Trent. “You down on your knees, my guys all around you, your former friends looking on while I humiliate you? Well don’t worry, I promised I wouldn’t punch you, and I don’t have a convenient dagger.”

  I did bring my knee up again, though. It slammed into the underside of his chin and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he flew back and slammed into the ground.

  He wasn’t down for long, of course. It turns out it’s a lot harder to knock someone out in the real world than it is in a video game world. He sat up, rubbing his jaw where I’d kneed him, and glared daggers at me.

  "So this is what it's come to you pussy?” he spat, tears coming as he was wracked with sobs. "You can't fight fair so you're going to sucker punch me while your goons look on?”

  I cocked my head to the side and thought about everything he'd learned since I started the game. How I’d started with a character that had no offensive abilities whatsoever, and how that had pretty much worked out for me by relying on my wits and the kindness of others.

  “What am I supposed to do?" I asked. "You only take on people who are smaller than you. What's the point in trying to go up against you in a fair fight when you're not fighting fair to begin with?”

  "Because that's how it's done!" Trent sobbed.

  I shook my head. "Not here. Not now. This is my school, and as long as I'm here it's under my protection, which means asshole bullies like you are going to get treated the same way you just got treated in the game. Are we clear on that?”

  I nodded to the big guys as Trent scrambled up and bumped right into a solid wall of his former football teammates. They raised their eyebrows as though asking me if I was sure I wanted to do this, and I nodded again.

  They released Trent and he stumbled forward. He collapsed down to his knees for a moment, but he was back up on his feet soon enough.

  Trent glared at me. His face was a mask of fury and rage as he balled his hands into fists. We’re talking this was the kind of rage that caused someone to do things that were monumentally stupid and against their best interest. Like punching out someone who had a bunch of hired muscle standing around ready to beat the crap out of anyone who tried to go after their boss.

  I looked at Trent’s fist. I looked back at Trent. I arched a single eyebrow as I crossed my arms.

  Trent's fist shook and wavered. Finally the fist fell, and Trent seemed to deflate as all the fight went out of him.

  "That's what I thought," I said. "Now get the fuck out of my sight, and never bother me in the game or out ever again."

  "You want us to take care of him?" Trevor asked as Trent stumbled through the crowd, his body wracked with sobs. More than one person pulled their tablets up to take pictures or video, and I had no doubt this was going to be all over the usual places on the Internet sooner rather than later.

  “He’s not worth it,” I said. “Thanks for the help though!”

  "Don't mention it," Trevor said. "Thanks for your help."

  He winked at me. I winked right back at him. Everyone else seemed to realize that the show was over, and so the crowd started to disperse.

  Kara was on me the moment the crowd disappeared. She wrapped her arms around me and peppered my face with kisses.

  "You idiot!" she said, then she kissed me some more. "That was amazing!" More kisses. "But you're such an idiot for taking a risk like that!" Kisses again. "But that was so hot!"

  That was enough to have me pull her back just a little bit. I wanted to make sure I’d actually heard what I thought I’d just heard.

  "Seriously?" I asked. "You thought that was hot?"

  “You made Trent your bitch! That was totally hot!"

  I turned and watched Trent disappearing down the hall, slinking away with his tail between my legs. Sure we might have won the battles, a major battle in the game world and one in the real world, but I was well aware that this was only the beginning.

  Trent would be back. Horizon would be back.

  And I’d be waiting for them with an army and the full might of Spellcraft Industries behind me!

  Epilogue 1: Middle Managers

  "This is completely out of line!"
>
  The Horizon executive slammed his hand down on the table and it made a slap that echoed through our surroundings, which were a lot more expansive and impressive than the small conference room I’d been confined to the first time I was dragged to one of these meetings with Horizon.

  We were in a virtual room now, of course. The Horizon executive, they weren’t just sending their middle management pukes for this, hadn’t wanted to bother himself with leaving his high-priced office, or mansion, or wherever the fuck he was communicating from, to come down and bitch about what was happening in the game personally.

  I forced myself not to smile as I looked up at the screen hovering in the air over our table that was playing multiple views of the big moment. That's what everyone at Lotus had taken to calling it. The moment when a mysterious figure had stepped seemingly out of nowhere and taken on Horizon. Taken them on and won, using nothing but existing game systems.

  "Now I'm not sure that I appreciate your tone of voice," John Reynolds IV, founder and owner of Lotus, otherwise known as the old man, said, squaring his shoulders and looking like he was about to punch someone.

  As well he should. After all, that Horizon prick was being one hell of an asshole, and this was Lotus territory.

  We sat around a slab of stone on top of an island that flared out at the top of an impossibly thin rock column that rose hundreds of feet out of the middle of a lake that was in the middle of a giant crater. Mountainous rocky walls rose all around us, and waterfalls sprayed down providing a cooling mist that was better than any air conditioning.

  Of course I was well aware that it was all an illusion. That I was simply being told by the neurons in my brain that were being tickled by the Lotus hardware that I was being hit with a cool spray mist. Then in reality I was back in my nicely air-conditioned office which was climate controlled to a pleasant sixty-eight degrees no matter what, and anyone who thought that was just a little too cool could bring a sweater thank you very much because thermostat privileges were something that even high-level people like the head of Crafting Designs didn’t get.

  "I'll talk to you however I want!" the Horizon executive said. "Do you have any idea what these new items flooding the market are doing to our revenue streams? We stand to lose a great deal of money because of this!”

  The old man leaned back, put his hands together behind his head, and smiled a thin smile. It was only there for a moment, so short it probably wouldn't have been noticed if I hadn't been looking for that smile, but it’d been there.

  He was enjoying the ever loving fuck out of this. I was enjoying it too, but I had to tread carefully here. We didn’t know each other, after all, aside from coming to these meetings and me giving reports on my crafting system.

  They’d been very interested in that before the game launched. The Horizon middle management types wanted to make sure there was no potential for real competition with their shovelware items, and the Reynolds had overridden their concerns with a wink in my direction.

  That’d been a good day. If I was a betting man I’d even put odds down on those Horizon middle managers no longer having jobs after the most recent debacle.

  The look that replaced that thin smile on the old man was one of profound concern.

  "Well no," he said. "I can't say that I do have any idea what this is doing to you or your revenue. Are you in some sort of trouble? You know we’d be more than happy to help. That's why we offered to let you sell items in the game to offset some of the losses you projected from Lotus going live and distracting attention from your subpar modules.”

  "You shut the fuck up," the Horizon executive said, pointing an accusatory finger at the old man. "You know exactly what you’re doing. I don't know how you set up that kid to sell things so cheap, but…"

  "Actually I believe Todd can tell us everything we need to know about that. Right Todd?”

  And just like that all eyes on the platform were on me. It wasn't an entirely comfortable place to be. Especially since I’d been thinking about some of my interactions with the kid.

  I liked the kid, but ever since the Battle of the Goblinsteel Mine I’d been going over all of those interactions and trying to determine whether or not there was any point where it could be said I’d given an unfair advantage to the kid in some way.

  Not that I particularly gave a fuck about giving an unfair advantage. After all, this was a private videogame with a crafting system that allowed the kid to do everything, and Horizon already wasn't playing by the rules forcing us to sell their shit.

  It's not like I was violating any of the contracts Lotus had with Horizon if I gave the kid a push in the right direction, or just watched over him. Honestly the kid had come up with most everything on his own.

  Still. For a moment I had the panicked thought that the Reynolds was asking me to give everything away, including my in-game interactions with the kid who’d just fucked over Horizon so spectacularly, and not asking me for a simple status update.

  But of course he wouldn’t be asking for anything like that. Of course the Horizon exec had no way of knowing that I knew the kid who was fucking them over so spectacularly. I knew there’d be no convincing them I hadn’t done anything wrong if that got out.

  "Right," I said, clearing my throat. I waved a hand in front of me and a screen appeared that only I could see. It had my presentation on my crafting system.

  Meanwhile William was glaring at me. I was pretty sure my former friend turned manager had my own suspicions about what’d been going on, but if he had his suspicions he was keeping his mouth shut for now.

  "As you can see," I said, making the window viewable by everyone around the slab with a thought. “Our crafting system is unique in that if players developed the proper skills they could create a game economy where those players have the ability to craft items that are as good as, if not better than, the stuff available as PVP rewards or in raid dungeons. Our numbers from the early access showed that most players were more interested in killing monsters and each other and exploring the game world than in working out the intricacies of an intentionally complicated crafting system, but those players always had the potential to manufacture the best goods in the game if they weren't interested in spending the equivalent of a full-time job in raid dungeons working with dozens or hundreds of other gamers to try and take down those bosses. And honestly, many of the requirements for accessing high level materials to make the best items in the game would’ve required the equivalent of raiding infrastructure were it not for the unique situation on the ground created by Horizon guilds occupying and clearing out high level raid areas leaving them open to exploitation by a lone player.”

  I’d gotten so into the presentation that I wasn't paying attention to the looks around me. When I finally finished I looked up with a satisfied smile, and that smile only grew more satisfied as I saw the way everyone in the room was staring at me in complete and total disbelief.

  The Horizon exec, in particular, looked furious. Which was just fine with me. I’d added in those bits about the game manipulation they’d tried setting the scene for their downfall on purpose. I wanted to twist the knife an pour some salt over the wound.

  "Were there any questions?" I asked, grinning.

  "You seriously expect me to believe this?" the Horizon executive asked. "How the hell are players supposed to have any sort of fun in a game where they can just manufacture whatever they want without having to work together in a raid?”

  “I can assure you that this gentleman who has started flooding the market with these superior items has worked just as hard as any raid despite things being slightly easier because the raid dungeon area was cleared out by your minions,” I said, ignoring the irritated look the exec gave me. “We've been keeping an eye on him via the logs, and I what he has done to accomplish this market takeover is far more impressive than simply going in and defeating a raid boss."

  “Not to mention he actually did defeat a raid boss, sort of,” William said, giving
me a grudging bit of support. “Sure it’s not in the way people usually think of defeating a raid boss, but his solution was unique and totally within the rules in Lotus. If anything it’s the kind of behavior we want to encourage. There’s a reason we put in the ability for players to take territory for their own, even if this territory was taken far faster than we’d ever anticipated.”

  I smiled a thin little smile. Conlan’s solution to that raid dungeon had been as much the talk of Lotus and the wider gaming world as anything he’d done with the Auction House, and I knew there were game designers who were crowing at the fact that the first raid dungeon cleared out was a negotiated settlement rather than a bunch of players going in and killing a bunch of stuff.

  It showed the world that Lotus wasn’t your typical massive online game, for all that most of the population still seemed content to treat it like just another massive online game. Which is what had allowed Conlan to step right through that myopic view of what an MMO was and make the game world his bitch.

  It also served as one hell of a validating moment for the designers who’d argued for putting in the possibility to negotiate settlements with raid bosses and make that part of a system for acquiring territory. Subscriptions and hardware sales were already through the roof thanks to all the free publicity the game had gotten from Conlan’s antics.

  "And what exactly is it that he's done beyond what I can see on the recorded streams?” the Horizon executive asked, a low and dangerous tone to his voice.

  I smiled and shrugged. "I'm afraid that's all proprietary. You understand, of course."

  The Horizon executive looked like he did understand, and he didn’t like it. It was an echo of a line Horizon had given Lotus time and time again whenever they asked for information regarding the ongoing investigation into what exactly had been done with those units that’d "accidentally" turned some players into vegetables, and killed others.

  I hadn't been a party to any of those investigations, but any time the subpoenas started to fly tongues started to wag all around the company. I’d heard the scuttlebutt around the office and in the cafeteria, even if I wasn't exactly sure what was going on with that ongoing investigation.