It all sounded quite persuasive. Max obviously knew what he was talking about and wouldn’t be joking about such things.
“All right. Let’s go.”
We went out onto the street and got into the car. Alexei immediately drove out of the yard and joined the flow of vehicles.
“How do they make money in there?” I resumed our interrupted conversation.
“Oh, on everything. For example, low-level locations have a lot of paid items, such as expensive outfits on weak characters. People hunt them down and kill the players, mainly by using high Luck scores or special abilities in case of drops. The obtained equipment ends up with the merchants. The end goal is to sell stolen goods and convert game currency into real money.”
Considering the amount of jargon coming out of my old platoon commander’s mouth, he’d spent a while in the Edge of the Abyss!
“Isn’t attacking another player in safe locations punishable with an account block?”
“It is,” Max agreed. “However, there are many ways to trick an inexperienced player into PvP mode, causing them to break the rules and become a justified target. Anyway, a player is under the Aura of Immunity for the first 10 levels and then they have to protect themselves. Don’t forget that the Edge of the Abyss is virtual reality, meaning it fully imitates real life.”
“Without any laws?”
“No, why? There is an acceptable PvP range. It is calculated simply as the level of your character +20. There are no bans within it, except that you might end up with a negative aura and ruin your relationship with the local NPCs. Basically, anyone can choose whether to remain in town and be protected by the guards, join a powerful faction or risk going off alone beyond the town walls. Most people take that risk. The Edge of the Abyss statistics show that millions of users log into it every day from all over the world. People want fun.”
“And land in a meat grinder?”
Max only shrugged. “There is an excess of blood and virtual deaths. Almost nobody sticks to the 10% realism that the developers recommend. The digital space presents too many temptations for the modern person. This world turned out to be harsh but it is the result of our actions, which can’t be denied.”
“You mean there’s no way to fight the Dark players?”
“No, why? You can, using the game’s methods. Which is the surest way, actually.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Capturing and controlling territories. Creating truly safe regions, where a Dark aura is no good even for quests.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
Max hesitated but then nodded. “I’m a member of the Mongoose Clan. We ensure safety on our lands.”
“Can I join you?”
“No, not yet.”
“Why?”
“Firstly, I don’t decide who gets to join. Secondly, your level of realism is too low. Our test for respawn is at least 75% of immersion. Thirdly, a player needs to have a Standard account and be at least Level 40 to join the Clan.”
“Why is it so strict?”
“Would you take complete newbies into battle with you when your regular enemy has a hundred kills and can put up with pain that you can’t tolerate?”
I was silent. The sensory realism really did change everything.
“Don’t feel bad. I’ll give you recommendations for upgrades and permission to log in on our lands. You’ll be able to take a good look around, try yourself against mobs and only then decide whether you want to stay.”
“Thank you for the offer but it won’t work. Unless I can delete a character and create a new one.”
“Why?” Max was surprised.
“I’m somewhere in the Dark Frontier right now. Savage and his gang sent me there using an ancient portal.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” Max perked up.
“What’s so special about my situation?”
“The Dark Frontier is located beyond the Wild Lands. Not many have been there since the Abyss invaded. We tried to organize a raid but we haven’t reached it so far. I’ll be blunt, information from your map would be very useful. Frontier items are priceless!”
“Right. It’s easier to draw water with a sieve than farm there. My character has already dropped to Level 9.”
“What was your level before?”
“Level 12 when I landed there.”
“Are you willing to log in again?”
“I’ll try.”
“Then keep it together. We’ll get to you. Do you have a recording of when the Dark players opened the portal?”
“No, there was too much going on.”
“That’s a shame!” Max was genuinely disappointed. “You certainly know how to find trouble,” he chuckled. “As I’ve said, people don’t change with age.”
“Where are we going?”
“To be honest, we’re just doing circles right now.”
“Are you trying to decide whether to take me to your secret base?” I felt hurt.
“Don’t sulk. It’s not my base, it belongs to the Clan. I’d sent a request and was waiting for a reply.”
“Did you get it?”
“Not yet. Lex, let’s head to our place,” he told the driver. “Circumstances have changed.”
“No problem.”
We turned sharply, circled around the old city lanes for a while, making sure that we weren’t being followed and then headed to the center of the megacity again. Thankfully, it was still early morning and there was no traffic.
“May I see the account information?” Max asked.
“Here,” I gave him the chip.
He activated his personal nanocomputer, entered the login and password that I gave him. Max’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “How long have you been playing?”
“Less than a day if you add up all the sessions.”
“Yet you’ve already received a personal mission and related artifacts!”
“Do you mean the crystal and the amulet?”
“Yup.
“What’s so special about them?”
“They’re unidentified items. Which means they’re from the Abyss.”
Alexei pulled into a parking lot while we were talking.
Holographic ads glowed on every side. There was a great number of cars despite the early hour.
Mainstream Digital Entertainment Center.
“Seriously? This is your base?” I must have looked completely baffled.
“Mongoose is a combat clan,” Max replied. “Renting a fully-equipped center gives us a lot of advantages.”
“For example?”
“We don’t destroy families and don’t place our loved ones in danger. We work in shifts. A day in the capsule, two days at home. When we need everyone online, for example, for a raid or an attack on our lands, there are enough capabilities here. This place has everything, from back-up VR capsules to rest zones.”
“So, players from other regions can’t be members of your clan?”
“There are other centers. Sorry, I can’t answer many of your questions right now.”
We made our way inside through the service entry. We passed along the internal second-floor balcony above the dancefloor and bar. There were a lot of people below us and it was impossible to tell who had come to party and who was relaxing after a combat shift.
“In here,” Max opened an inconspicuous door. We found ourselves in a long, radial corridor. “This is the guest wing,” Max said curtly. “This is your room, I’ll leave you to settle in while I make my report. Get some sleep. We’ll talk later.”
I followed his advice without too much musing. It had been quite a night. I was utterly exhausted.
* * *
I was woken up by a dual tone.
“Open.”
The door slid aside and Max walked into the room.
“You’ve had quite a snooze,” he smiled broadly and sat in the armchair. “Time to get up and wash your face!”
“Right. You’re giving me ord
ers now?” I tried to joke. I actually felt quite tense. My life had changed so abruptly.
I came back after about 5 minutes. The small table between the armchairs had dishes laid out on it. A light breakfast.
“Have you got any good news for me, Max?” I took a sip of the juice and was surprised to find that it was real juice.
“It’s all quiet at Denis’ apartment so far. Considering that you refused to work as a mule for the Dark players, your reputation is in the positive with our clan.”
“Max, I have a request. I know the information is out there on the net, but I don’t have time to dig through the flood and separate fact from fiction. Explain what’s going on, will you?”
He nodded as if had expected the question. “What exactly are you interested in?”
“Why is the world called the Edge of the Abyss? Who are the Dark ones? Where does their aura come from and what advantages does it give them?”
Max took a sip of his coffee. “Have you head of the Land of the Chosen?”
“No.”
“Ten years ago, it was an elite private club for very wealthy people. The first full-scale virtual reality and, to access it, fully immersive capsule technology. A sensory realism of 100%, plus it was a fantasy world set in the pre-industrial age with an untouched biosphere. A digital Eden, basically. There was a large dollop of magic, mysticism and alchemy added. It contained a leveling up system, boundless territory for exploration, stunningly beautiful towns — all for a small number of users, who had absolute power in that world.”
“So how did they share it?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“They didn’t, initially,” Max replied. “Their paths didn’t cross at all, unless they wished it. Each one had their own town and endless space, as well as thousands of NPC subjects, who were generated by neural network technology.”
“What’s the problem, then? There’s a reason why you started with this, right?”
“Do you remember the beginning of the Asian Conflict?”
“A rhetorical question. It was scary. Personally, I thought the nuclear strikes were a realistic option.”
“You weren’t the only one. That was when the Land of the Chosen began to show signs of strain. When the global economic crisis hit, compounded by the fear of possible nuclear strikes, many financial empires collapsed. You remember how it happened. Sudden bankruptcies, currencies soaring and crashing, defaults...”
“To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in the global economy in those days. We were right in the thick of it. Have you forgotten?”
“No, I haven’t,” Max touched his personal nanocomputer bracelet and the holographic image of an elderly man appeared in the air between us. “Ernst Goodman. Founder of the first digital shelter. He had lost his fortune in the space of a few days and people say he was suicidal before he found a way to fix his situation. Goodman owned one of the islands in the Land of the Chosen. It was all that he had left. When the conflict escalated and the world balanced on the edge of a nuclear war, he bought a bunker that nobody wanted, left over from the Cold War. He took out a loan, bought a batch of VR capsules, and offered anyone who wanted to save themselves a place in the Land of the Chosen.”
I snorted.
“His plan worked,” Max continued. “He got his fortune back within a few weeks. Places in the VR capsules cost an astronomical amount but the fear of what was coming was stronger and all the available spots were snapped up. The idea was picked up at once since the owners of the digital worlds were the richest and most influential people of the world. The continents and islands of the Land of the Chosen were populated at an incredible rate. It turned out to be an incredibly profitable business. The manufacture of VR capsules had been perfected and put into production by that point. The plan was to use them for long-distance space flights. By the time the Asian Conflict reached its peak, the population of the digital world was several dozen million people. Global tensions rapidly found their way into virtual reality and the digital Eden began to arm itself, with the first clans being created. Things didn’t progress to large-scale confrontations as the Asian Conflict was finally resolved, but full immersion technology had reached the masses. When the hysteria subsided, it became clear that the past was not coming back. The exclusive club for a select few became a densely populated virtual space. People didn’t want to abandon it.”
“I was recovering in hospital at the time.”
“And I had quit and was trying to find a way to make a living. We were lucky, in a way.”
“Lucky?!”
“The Land of the Chosen was hacked. You won’t find any official information about this, only rumors on shady forums.
“The Abyss is a virus?”
“I’d put it another way. The Abyss is content that has been altered. Nobody knows the exact date of the attack. There were no obvious glitches but there were gradual NPC mutations. Cults of the Abyss appeared in some regions. The NPCs started praying to some sort of Shadows. Then came the catastrophe. A section of the digital space disappeared. Portals appeared in other zones, from which poured forth disfigured but incredibly strong creatures. The Land of the Chosen underwent an emergency shut down. They avoided a lot of casualties that way. They wanted to completely freeze the project but it didn’t work. Over a billion users all over the world had given away all they had for a place under the digital sun. If access was taken away from them, mass rioting would have swept through the Earth in days. A multinational management corporation was urgently created and given control of the project. They tried to recover the Land of the Chosen but the rollback didn’t work.”
“So how did they find a solution?”
“Strong NPC factions were introduced by the developers. They wiped out the beasts that had invaded and closed most of the portals, but they couldn’t move past the Dark Frontier, a mysterious network of empty towns and crumbling fortifications surrounding the heart of the Abyss. That’s all I know.”
“Did they find the hackers?”
“No, but everyone knows it was done by the New Asia conglomerate. They couldn’t accept their defeat in the real world. The digital zones belonging to them were going to be annexed but instead they disappeared, swallowed up by the Abyss. No one’s found a way to stop mutations among the NPCs. It’s impossible to delete the defective content without destroying the virtual world. Some believe that the Abyss was created using gaming techniques.”
“Gaming? Is that even possible?”
Max nodded, explaining, “The initial co-owners of the Land of the Chosen had enough power and the right to alter the digital space using ‘magic’ within their own territories. Many of them occupied quite senior positions in the New Asia conglomerate. That suggests certain things, doesn’t it?”
I finished my juice and was silent for some time, trying to process what I had heard. Then I asked, “Where do the Dark players come from?”
“Players with Dark auras appeared about six months after the Abyss invaded,” Max replied. “They had reloaded the reality by that time, corrected the leveling system and created safe regions where small groups of users could gradually explore the Wild Lands and even reach the edge of the Dark Frontier. In those distorted forests and deadly dungeons, and sometimes among the ruins of abandoned towns, live mutated NPC characters. If you have reached Level 30 and use 50% of realism, they will speak to you and offer you a test and a reward for the future belongs to the Abyss.” Max quoted with a crooked grin. “Meaning that it has always existed and will soon swallow everything up again.”
“What’s the point of it all, Max? What advantages does the smoky aura give people?”
“It’s all relatively simple and practical, like in real life. The Dark players are rewarded for killing other players. They gain experience, unique weapons, apparel and abilities that they cannot get any other way. But first, you must dedicate yourself to the Abyss. For that, you accept a task, for example, obtaining a certain item. The player follows hints but eventually
discovers that this trinket (always a different one) is a sacred object in a small village somewhere. Hence, the dilemma. They won’t give you the item willingly. You can’t buy it. You can only steal it or take it by force. There are no other options. You must decide. Many think, ‘Oh, what’s the big deal, an NPC village, they’ll respawn. Meanwhile, I’ll complete the quest and get a pile of goodies that I’ve been promised.’ It’s easy to become a killer in the digital world. I guess the usual moral brakes don’t work.”
Edge of the Abyss (Respawn Trials Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 7
