by Rick Scar
Chapter 1. A way out of being broke
Give me the place to stand, and I shall move the earth.
– Archimedes
Give me enough money, and I shall move the earth and all the planets with it.
– An unknown poor man
Money makes the world go round. That’s the ultimate and unappealable truth. Will Thompson, the older sibling and the only son in the family, had to learn this truth too soon. People that say you can’t buy happiness with money just don’t know where to shop, and, let’s face it, most of the time turn out to be some deadbeat losers. It takes either brute force or money to have power, except brute force takes a back seat on this one—having money means being able to buy any kind of force these days.
Financial debt, on account of multiple unsecured loans from various banks and bad credit loan companies—not always legal, and sometimes downright shady—was suffocating both Will and his dad. The purse strings were so tight that they could only afford a candlelight dinner, without the dining part.
Will’s father, Darius Thompson, was working his fingers to the bone and, for the most part, was away and not able to see much of his family. Will’s mom, a Russian immigrant, abandoned her family when Leah was three, leaving her brother to do all the parenting, which made the siblings very close. Against his father’s wishes, the young man dropped out of high school in pursuit of a better life for his family, and especially his little sister. He had made a crucial decision: he was going to make sure that his sister gets a proper education and pops into this dog-eat-dog world with all guns blazing. She was meant to shine bright, and he was always going to be there for her.
Will and his dad did everything possible to send Leah to one of the best private boarding schools outside their hometown. With her smarts, she’d have no problem getting an above average GPA good enough for any college. At fourteen, she was a cut above the rest of the kids her age. Being shrewd and savvy made her one of the top students, leaving most of her classmates far behind.
Will was a strong young man with an athletic build who, by the time he was twenty-four, had already served his country. He had been recruited into an elite Special Ops unit of the US military after some serious health screening, both physical and mental. The enlistment requirements changed in 2035, when the normal mandatory eight year commitment period had changed to five years of mandatory active duty, which meant there was a chance for a rookie to get selected for Special Forces. If there was one thing that Will had in spades, it was a great deal of personality, which he accumulated growing up. By looking in Will’s eye, his detachment commander saw something that others didn’t—an unbending will and determination. People like that are worth their weight in gold, which was why, after proper training, Will had made it onto the Hostage Rescue team.
The money was good, which gave him some breathing room financially and let him take care of his sister’s tuition payments. Leah, in turn, knowing what price tag her education was coming with both literally and figuratively, was all about her studies. She could not afford to let her old man and brother down.
It had been almost a year since Will left the service and found new work as a waiter in a fancy restaurant; a job that one of his army friends had hooked him up with. He could have gotten a job in law enforcement, or as a personal bodyguard, but, having spent three years negotiating with terrorists and surviving firefights, he felt it was time to put his military past behind and step off of his dangerous path. For him this could only mean one thing: his relative financial freedom was waving goodbye, promising new debt and hardship. The obscure and unknown was knocking on his door again, until one day he accidentally overheard a conversation in the restaurant he worked at.
A couple of well-dressed guys of about the same age as Will were paying with Platinum Visa cards, emphasizing their social status and drawing a clear line between them and Will.
From what he could hear, they were talking about a new VR game scheduled to release in six months. Will would never pay any attention to a VR-based conversation, big whoop! But the phrase “big money”, slipping out of the mouth of one of the speakers, made him immediately reconsider. It’s a good thing they were sitting at the bar, so no one noticed a concerned third-party stare.
“I’m telling you, it’s legit. You know who my father is, right? I heard what they were talking about, every last word, man. Thank god he didn’t see me, he would have ripped my head clean off.”
“Ha! He definitely would, your dad is insane!” Both chuckled.
After that, they lowered their voices. It made it harder to hear them, but Will tried to follow the conversation the best he could.
“So when is it out?”
“Well, it’s not production ready yet. It’s in private beta, or something, but once it’s released, hundreds of millions of players from all around the world are going to want to play! Do you even understand what kind of money we’re talking here? This business is skyrocketing! They use real life money to buy virtual swords and costumes. Man, I’m so excited! I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, but just think of all the money we’ve spent on video games. They will buy anything that’s going to help them score extra cool points. Magic potions, epic threads, you name it! Real. Life. Money, bro! Those player auctions have tons of offers!”
“Yeah, sure, but how is it any different from the games we’re playing right now?”
“It’s completely different!”
“I don’t get it…”
“Everything is for sale in this game! Property, lands, kingdoms... entire empires for Chrissakes! This is the dawn of a new era of VRMMO! You could be the Mayor of a virtual town! But what’s truly awesome is that brand new game AI they’re using. You’ll never guess what that guy that my father was talking to said. He said it’s going to adapt to human behavior. But, hey, I never told you that—it’s like, totally confidential. Man, that’s going to be something else, I’m telling you!”
“Geez, keep your pants on. It’s a game changer, I got it. There’s just one thing that I don’t get, though—what was the conversation between your dad and that other guy about?”
“Oh, they were just discussing how they could beat the game. It’s business stuff, but in virtual reality. I didn’t get a whole lot of it, but the numbers they were saying would have blown you out of the water, bro.”
“That serious, huh?”
“Will!” someone yelled.
The young man slowly turned towards the bartender, who was handing him a drink that needed to be served. He was not thinking about the drink, or those two at the bar anymore. His mind was going a million miles an hour. What he had heard was enough to make him understand that he had to get in on this. He knew there was a lot of prep work to be done, but he was beaming.
It was a great way out of being broke.
Chapter 2. Tips from a pro
It’s been six months, and Will has almost lost his sleep. His dad and sister were concerned about his health, but Will insisted that he was fine, and that, soon enough, they would go on a vacation somewhere. Without saying much more, he was keeping his nose to the grindstone. The young man didn’t want to think about what would happen if the plan wasn’t going to work. If it weren’t for Curtis, an old army friend who lent Will quite a sum of money, none of the following would have happened.
At his other job, working as a night shift security guard at a mall, Will wasted no time: he was studying the gaming world between his rounds. He was no gamer himself, but, if he was taking something seriously, nothing could stand in his way. Lack of knowledge or experience was no exception. He sifted through tons of information learning strategies, character builds, and character classes, memorizing every relevant detail. He didn’t know
which of this would be useful in the game he was preparing for, so the task at hand was to learn as much as he possibly could. In reality, things could turn out to be different, which would render his effort useless, but, at least, he was doing something. The information was so abundant that one of the walls in Will’s room was slowly turning into a link chart with thumbtacks and strings attached to them. The scene was so baffling that if anyone was to see it, Will would have had a lot of explaining to do, proving he wasn’t crazy. Thankfully, his home folks were away most of the time—dad was travelling on business a lot, and his sister Leah lived on campus during the school term. Apart from everything else, Will joined several community forums for gaming geeks in a hope to find something useful among copious amounts of various links and comments.
All that learning made no sense without practice. To fix that, Will was renting a game capsule at one of those specialized gaming centers—gaming hubs, as they call them—every other day. Those weren’t cheap, but were a necessity, because failure was not an option. This game capsule allowed each player to create only one game character under their account which, in turn, was linked to the capsule’s serial number. Will had no idea who came up with that, but it was frustrating. For the longest time, he could not make up his mind as to which class he should pick for his character. The lady at the reception, named Angela, explained that to help players make a choice, they “offer blank accounts" with preloaded character classes of every kind to choose from. Except, these characters can’t join clans or do quests. This option was recently introduced by a series of developing companies to attract new players. This worked for the noobs as well—what are the chances a player starts anew or even stays in the game in case he doesn’t like his race or class? The abilities for each character were preset by professional gamers to a reasonable limit, so that you could explore your character’s potential prior to making your choice. It was not about clothing, weapons, or skills (you had to go with default settings there), but rather about which character are you—a tank? A healer? Or, maybe, a thief?
Three months have passed since Will first heard about the game. He opened his eyes coming back to the reality. The snow-white interior of the capsule welcomed him back from the game in its familiar manner. He automatically opened the door and got out. It was chilly outside the capsule. The light from the ceiling, as soft as the music that was playing, coupled with a faint smell of coffee finalized the transition.
A tanned guy, wearing shorts and a colorful t-shirt, who looked either Japanese or Korean, was quietly talking to Angela at the reception. When he saw Will, he stopped talking and smiled at him, like he was seeing an old friend. Will didn’t know the man, but he definitely saw him before.
“Hey,” said the guy. “Angela told me you’ve been trying to choose a class for months. Can I help?”
Will frowned trying to figure if he looked like he needed help.
“What do you want?” asked Will without blinking.
Angela stepped in, “This is Pak Cheong he’s a part-time consultant in our center and a Lost Lands legend. A sensational game, you may have heard of it. You, as our regular, can ask him for advice if you want. Free of charge, of course.”
“Legend, huh?” Will thought it was a great chance to clarify some things he read about and got straight to the point, “I have a couple of questions unrelated to classes.”
“Shoot,” said Pak.
“How well can one do in the game if one was to play alone?”
“Well, it depends on your goals. If you’re not into epic quests or dungeons, that would normally take at least five people to complete, then you’re good, just play for fun. There’s a lot of people who simply want to escape into a world of sword and magic, depths of space or underwater realms. The downside here is that you will probably be spending more time respawning than playing, and that impedes your character development. Different games have different penalties—from deleveling to debuffs so harsh, you wouldn’t stand a chance against a lousy low level mob. There are also time outs, where you die, but you don’t die, meaning you just get kicked out from the game for a day or two. It’s fine if you’re a casual player, but if playing is your bread and butter, death is the worst-case scenario for you.”
“Right,” Will nodded and paused to think something over. “Have you ever killed tougher enemies? I mean, like, ten times stronger than you.”
“Sure. Once. But then again, every situation is unique. What do you know about exploits?”
“You mean using game bugs to your advantage?”
“Exactly!” Pak nodded. “Those are hard to find in modern games. The developers tend to get very nosy when it comes to this kind of stuff. They follow top gamers on social media, read forums and blogs, watch tutorials—anything they can find. Then they fix it and release updates. But gamers are a slippery type, right? We can’t find one, we make one. Some even manage to make some coin off of it by selling them, but, I’ve got to tell you, it’s tedious as hell, you have to know the location inside out, and waste a billion lives, which, as you can tell, is not easy.”
Will hasn’t learned anything new from that and, wondering if he should speak frankly, gave Pak a puzzled look.
“Listen, as you can probably tell, it’s more about money for me than fun, and the problem is that I don’t know which class is right for that.”
“Hmm. You don’t come across as a real noob, indeed. You’re too focused, even when you play. Sorry, peeked at you while you were in there. Uhm, never mind. Opinions split, as they say. People tend to be very fond of the class they represent. I for one am making good money playing a Paladin. It’s not about the class, it’s about the player. If you’re not all thumbs, and you got what it takes, then go for it—pick one and show them what you got.”
“Sounds like they’re paying you for getting people hooked,” said Will with a smile. Pak answered looking cunningly.
They were talking for half an hour more, during which time Will was actually learning a lot of useful things. When they finished, Pak handed Will his business card,
“Here, I’d like to play with you sometime. In case you have any questions, be sure to contact me too. Free of charge. I have connections that could use a smart and motivated guy like you. Think about it.” Pak waved his hand and headed back to the reception.
“See ya,” said Will looking at the card and walked outside.
Chapter 3. An unexpected twist
The next three months were dedicated solely to learning. Will continued his communication with Pak, better known in gaming communities as LightTerror, who was providing him with some helpful links and tips, just like he promised, which, finally, helped Will make his decision. The Rogue. This class seemed to suit all of his needs and game style: good damage dealing potential, stealth, the ability to pick locks and get through high level areas without the need to battle every enemy in it. A little time has passed before Will received an invitation to a secret forum from Pak. A place to discuss RMT, ToS, mining, twinking, botting, MQ’ing, and such—sort of a dark side of the gaming world. No one was giving away their top secret strategies for making a living in MMOs, but basic principles were made clear, which was more than enough for Will.
As it turned out, people were not only selling outfits and gear, but also tip-offs about raid bosses, epic quests, instances, and many other things. Clans would pay top dollar for any kind of insights that would make them more influential. But, perhaps, the most profitable asset was video blogging. Every top gamer in every clan had a video channel—millions of views, tons of ads, and unbelievable revenues as a result. Many television channels aired video game shows as well. Pak had a contract with one of those. The money he was getting was not anywhere close to what top gaming stars were making, but good enough to buy a new apartment, new car, and other sweet life attributes. Games, that Will always thought of as mere entertainment, appeared in a whole different light, and he was never going to back out. He was certain about one thing—taking a chanc
e was worth quitting both his jobs.
The advertising campaign started two weeks before the release. The public went nuts! “It’s colossal! A groundbreaking game!” screamed every tabloid and TV commercials. First trailers that Will saw on VideoWorld made his jaw drop. What he saw was nothing like the many games he tried at the gaming center. Those two clowns at the restaurant were right, it was a new era of virtual reality.
The official site of the game was up and running. The forum section got instantly flooded with new topics and thousands of messages. A built-in translation tool was helping people from all over the world share their excitement. The game craze was gaining momentum day after day. Soon enough, more detailed information on game mechanics, character development, and available game classes and races was introduced. This one was different from any other game. The world of Ascension was built in a way that a player being level 1 could kill a level 50 or level 100 enemy. That, however, was not an easy task to accomplish—roughly 0,00001% chance, but a chance nonetheless. The higher the level of NPC or other player was, the more difficult he was to deal with. The more unwary you were, the less of a problem to your enemies your high level was—they would kill you despite you being ten times stronger than them. Two weeks felt like a day with all this fuss about the game. The game that became the most debated topic on the internet before its release.
Corporate people who stood behind the AI felt secure about their creation, but not about the servers. It took their finest scientists ten years and some serious brainwork to make this miracle named The Emperor—the very core of Ascension. The Emperor was the pinnacle of AI evolution—the first machine to ever step beyond Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. This AI could interact with human consciousness directly. Subordinated to The Emperor, AI Imitators and more advanced AIs were in control of NPCs—from simple mobs to quest NPCs. Those advanced AIs could learn and evolve without affecting the balance in the game, meaning a simple Ggoblin from some barbaric tribe could become the leader of that tribe and rule the area, but could not take over the world, unless that was consistent with the scenario. It was things like this that were The Emperror’s jurisdiction. All of this was explained in full detail on the game’s site.
