Finding a Body (The Dark Herbalist Book #4) LitRPG series

by Michael Atamanov

  I answered that I had more than enough enemies and, in the next few days, there would be plenty of large and small battles. After that, the decisive battle would surely be coming when my subjects would have to stand up against an unheard-of number of players, over a million and maybe even several million. I also told him that the corporation hoped the Dark Sovereign and his allies put up worthy resistance and the final battle would be epic.

  “And yet I don’t hear any enthusiasm in your voice,” the oligarch retorted. “I get the impression that you aren’t hoping for much more than ‘worthy resistance.’ It’s bad when soldiers don’t believe they can win a battle. But it’s much worse when their commander doesn’t either!”

  “But how can anything stand up against an army that cannot be wiped out?” Valeria shot out. “There are many times more of them and they’re undying, unlike the Dark Sovereign’s NPC fighters! Also the Dark Sovereign himself was made mortal, so when he dies the whole structure Amra created will fall apart!”

  The old man shifted his dim gaze to my sister. Val grew embarrassed and, shuffling her crutches, hurriedly retreated behind my back. Vladimir Toropov shook his head in reproach and said thoughtfully:

  “The morale situation is much worse than I thought, if even Valerianna Quickfoot allows herself to doub t . You are the most powerful enchantress in Boundless Realm, girl. Your praises are sung on the forum and your very name makes our enemies freeze in horror. My girl, this is not some sporting competition where everything is trite and obeys the rules. Here, the stronger team does not always emerge victorious. This is a true fight without any rules or referee. And in a battle like that, there are many factors beyond brute strength. It comes down to whoever who the most confident mindset and who is willing to fight to the end!”

  Iron Jeanette, who had been standing in silence and listening to our debate, also joined the conversation, supporting her old friend:

  “That’s exactly right! Amra, I have seen the mood of the players of Boundless Realm . The vast majority of them do not want to stand against the Dark Sovereign no matter what. They think you’re dangerous! You’ve already demonstrated a number of times what happens to those who oppose you! Some poor fools had a ghost suck their level down to one, others were chased down city streets shamefully by NPC villagers who wouldn’t even do them the honor of killing them. Others drowned in the sea, stripped to their clothing and losing all their valuables. Or the prisoners on the deck of the galley that you executed and had your wyvern eat alive. Or the Legion of Steel ’s strongest players, who spent days moaning on the forum that they were unable to log into the game! Also the shameful and indelible curse you put on your enemies! The Dark Sovereign hits very hard, everyone knows that by now. There are many examples, so there are extremely few left who want to see what it’s like to experience Amra’s rage first hand. Just keep going like that and there will be much less than ‘millions of players’ opposing you!”

  “What’s more, you could try to get more players on your side!” Valeria said, once again confident and stepping out in front. “Tim, offer the players something interesting: something they’ll get only for playing in your faction. After all, no matter what they say in the advertisement about an open world for all to discover, there are actually millions of people in the game who don’t know what to do with themselves, or how to differentiate themselves from thousands of cookie-cutter characters. If you can provide a way to stand out from the crowd, a huge amount of players will come join your side.”

  “Girl, you simply delight me. Your acumen is beyond your years!” the Russian oligarch praised my sister. “And if that doesn’t give you enough, there are mercenaries after all. And there are a huge number of such clans in Boundless Realm . You could also quietly, or maybe even not so quietly lure your most dangerous enemies to your side along with some particularly experienced commanders. An army without commanders turns into an uncontrollable pack of cowards. There aren’t so many players in Boundless Realm with experience leading troops. We could compile a list pretty quickly then try and bribe them all to our side. Yes, it will cost a lot. But as experienced businessmen say, if a problem can be solved with money, it isn’t really a problem, just an expense.”

  Luckily, Iron Jeanette and her old friend managed to restore my fighting spirit, which was all the way down in the dumps after my chat with the president. In fact, the situation didn’t look quite as hopeless as Thomas Heywood was trying to convince me. I smiled a predatory smile and answered:

  “Yes, I am bubbling with ideas, so it’s still too early to bury the Dark Sovereign. The enemy will cry in pity a thousand times because he dared take up arms against me. But it might cost a lot. It might even cost a ton.”

  “Money is isn’t hard to get, I can help you with that,” the oligarch light-mindedly waved his hand as if talking about empty things that didn’t merit his attention. “Just tell me, what kind of money are we talking about?”

  I took some air into my lungs and spoke loud and clear, attentively watching to see how everyone reacted.

  “Two and a half billion credits!”

  The lightminded smile instantly crawled off the old man’s face. The others sharply fell silent and just stared at me, batting their eyes in astonishment and not knowing what to say.

  “Yes, two and a half billion. Just for two weeks,” I repeated in case someone didn’t get it the first time. “Plus we’ll need another couple million credits for the thing we were just discussing: to buy up commanders, clan leaders and plenty of mercenaries.”

  “That might be a bit steep... But I wouldn’t say impossible...” Vladimir Toropov said in a raspy voice, slightly coming to his senses. “All I understand is that you cannot need that much money just to put into the game. But I’ll allow it. What do I get for risking my two and a half billion, though?”

  I held a long pause for greater effect and spoke decisively and clearly:

  “You can be Vice-President of the Boundless Realm Corporation, or appoint a representative!”

  Day Four. Calm before the Storm

  THE TESTER FLOOR. I hadn’t been here in the daytime for a long while. I even managed to avoid the crowds of newbies, who were milling about and standing in line for vending machines or bragging to their equally green colleagues about their first successes in Boundless Realm . For some reason, there were a lot of them today. Was this their lunch break or something? I glanced at the time. Yeah, that was it. One thirty. Then I could see why there were so many people crowded up here in the hallway.

  When I first came to work as a tester I was surprised and even annoyed at my colleagues’ habit of leaving the game on a schedule and going to get lunch and chat. But eventually I got used to it and my attitude softened. In the end, they just wanted to share their joys about gaining levels, skills and completing their first quests. And who better to tell than their equally green new colleagues?

  “Timothy, we’re over here!” Max Sochnier’s familiar voice drew my attention, and I started staring through the crowd.

  Predictably, Max Sochnier was at the table with our friend Leon and another person I really wasn’t expecting, Veronica. She was the lady who played the Dryad Dancer. I didn’t know that she and Leon had made up. However, due to my virtual imprisonment, I had fallen behind on life and missed a lot in the last few days.

  “The two of us are trying to get Veronica to bring her pirate fleet to Frigid Lake,” Max Sochnier told me and I just totally lost the thread.

  Excuse me, what? What business did Veronica, or more accurately her character Angelica Wayward and her pirates, have with my plight? The last time I asked about the Dryad Dancer, she was on a huge slave ship on its way to the Eastern Continent. And although Angelica Wayward was no longer chained up in a box as a prisoner, and was now free and had used her charms to take the captain under control, my calculations showed that her ship would still take quite some time to reach its destination.

  That said, the idea of a pirate brigade on Fr
igid Lake was very promising, and I actually had proposed it as an aside to my friends. We had a mission to somehow secure my eastern borders, given the undying had taken down the Dark Sovereign’s warband on the far bank and founded a stockade town there. I had my rider Darkness periodically scouting around their fortification, and I had also seen the enemy-controlled shore through the Sovereign’s Eye. So I knew the players had dug in hard there and had a strong garrison. And beyond that fortress with several levels of defensive ditches and walls they had already built docks with launch slips and were busy building large transport ships. Apparently, in a few days, we could expect an attempted landing on the other side of Frigid Lake. I knew all that and yesterday I told Max Sochnier the idea of hiring the Brotherhood of the Coast and teleporting them and their galleys and frigates to the lake. My French friend, whose trade galley plied the native waters of these dangerous pirates, promised to ask around in the ports and find out what he could. But where did Veronica enter into this?

  Hearing my question, Leon couldn’t even hold back and exclaimed in surprise:

  “Timothy, do you really not know?! Veronica defeated all the leaders of the Brotherhood of the Coast in duels, and now she wields sole authority over the pirate fleet!”

  “Well, it’s hard to call them duels in the traditional sense of the word,” Veronica laughed happily, clearly very pleased with herself. “Feminine wiles, guile, lots of magic, dances and potions. And all the fearsome scar-covered captains bowed before the small naked dryad who had never in her life even held a weapon, recognizing her unquestioned authority!”

  “Lots of people wrote about it on the forum and the corporation even released an entertaining clip about her unusual gameplay style,” Max Sochnier confirmed. Veronica started laughing again:

  “To be honest, the ad did have a few parts blurred out, but still it turned out great. I really, really liked it! And yes, I’ve been a senior corporate tester for a few days now! My fleet has seventy-eight ships ready to do battle. There are another six big triremes under repair after a boarding, but they’ll be fixed in two or three days. With no false modestly I can say that there is no force on the Southern Continent that can stand up against my pirates!”

  Well, well. That changed everything and, like it or not, I would have to come to an agreement with Veronica. I asked her price directly.

  “Look at you, Timothy. But still that is boring...” the girl cringed in dismay and put on a dejected face. “Does this issue really have to be settled monetarily? I’ve already got cash. I earn plenty on my 18+ streams. And in the game, pirate captains, both NPC and living player give me all kinds of rare gifts. It’s honestly beyond what I can handle. They simply shower me in coins and precious stones.”

  “What do you want then?” I had no idea what she was hinting at and couldn’t hide my confusion.

  Instead of answering, Veronica smiled just with the corners of her lips then, looking bored, she stared at her well-groomed nails for a long time as if proving a point. A minute later, she raised her eyes:

  “I mean, I don’t even know... Try and convince me, I guess. Just compliment me or something. Or offer me something interesting that will make my pirates think it’s worth going off to die in a cold snowy land.”

  “What makes you say die?” I hooked into the last bit and Veronica’s voice immediately turned cold and calculating.

  “Well what do you think will happen, Timothy? And don’t lie. The Dark Sovereign has a few days left to rule, a week at most. Then you and all your mobs will be swept away by an army of undying, all of your territory will be captured by your enemies. So tell me, why should I bring my pirates to a hopeless battle if you won’t win no matter what?”

  That was biting and extremely frank, without any attempt at humility or diplomacy. I noticed that Leon and Max had perked their ears in expectation of my reply. Just this morning I would have started burbling away that the outcome was “still unclear,” and how “maybe we can fight them off,” or “at least we’ll give them a good fight.” But now I was in a totally different mood.

  I sat back in the armchair and, my hands folded on my stomach, began to speak with the look of a man who knows all the secrets of existence stooping to explain elementary truths to an ignoramus:

  “That’s the whole point. I’m trying to look weak to trick the players! I’m trying to attract as many players as possible into the army against me. You see, the event is stalling out, but the corporation and I want it to finally grow to mass scale!”

  “And what’s the truth?” Leon immediately asked, impatient.

  “Well actually... do you know what a pack of fifteen level 400+ predators can do in the game with significant buffs from items, skills and perks? No? Not surprising. I don’t even know myself, though I am at the head of just such a pack. Or what a Royal Forest Wyvern also at level 400+ could do? Her mother Kayervina was fifty levels weaker and she still gave the players a run for their money. But there is one important difference: Kayervina was mortal. The Gray Pack and VIXEN respawn after every time they die, so they’re never out of the battle for long.”

  They went silent, digesting what they’d just heard. I hurried to continue, building on their impression and staring stubbornly at Veronica:

  “Other than that, I have Valerianna Quickfoot on my side. She’s the most powerful Beastmaster in Boundless Realm . She is now at level four hundred twenty. It’s scary to even imagine what her pets could do now. I think that deadly flying snake Kayervina would be stung to death in a matter of seconds by my sister’s hornets. Plus the level-four-hundred-eleven Titanium Joker. He alone could stop a whole army. Also consider the mercenaries. And I’ll have a lot of them. After all, you aren’t the only one with money! And that is disregarding the main army which now has more than thirty-eight thousand of the most fearsome monsters who have been receiving training from experienced specialists around the clock!”

  “Alright, alright, you’ve convinced me,” Veronica stopped me. “Losing isn’t a sure thing. I admit the Dark Sovereign actually might stop the player army. What remains is the question of my price. So can you offer me something unusual that might catch my fancy?”

  I understood perfectly that money or other valuables would not do the trick. Even if I promised Veronica an apple-sized flawless diamond in the game (if I could even get such a thing), that offer would most likely just scare her off rather than draw her to my side. No, I had to try something totally different... So what if... It was such an idiotic idea that it just might work:

  “What if I could make you a unique creature in Boundless Realm ? Just imagine: a golden marker on the mini-map and any character description you want. You want to be Angelica Wayward, Pirate Queen? Or maybe you want Angelica Wayward, Admiral of the Dark Sovereign?”

  “Ha, an admiral in a skirt,” Max Sochnier sidled in with a poorly timed barb. But Veronica answered with complete seriousness:

  “More like an admiral with no skirt. But I prefer the title ‘Pirate Queen.’ Alright, Timothy. Can you really make that happen in the game?”

  I gave a slow distinct nod, afraid to scare off my luck. Veronica then lit up and, extending a hand in a sign of a deal sealed, said:

  “Alright Amra, I’m in! I’ll need a few portals to bring my ships from New Tortuga harbor. And from me you’ll get round-the-clock surveillance of... what was it called again...? Frigid Lake. I’ll make sure not one enemy ship can slip through to your shores.”

  I squeezed her outstretched hand, confirming our understanding. Alright then, it worked! I’d just have to spend three Direct Intervention Points and the strongest fleet of the Southern Continent would come join my side! If I were in the game, I’d already be reading lines of text about increased Trading and Diplomacy skills! Yes, pirates were not the most reliable allies, just about like Veronica herself. But the authority and ghastly fame of the Dark Sovereign would keep them from making rash decisions for a time and, with this big time-crunch, that was plenty.


  * * *

  I TALKED with Leon and Max though somewhat filtering myself in Veronica’s presence to avoid sensitive details. The Ogre Fortifier told me that he had spent whole days building fortifications in the Icy Mountains, and the passes and slopes most ripe for incursion were already covered, while border garrisons of Drow elves and orcs were stationed at the forts. Giants, minotaurs and cyclopes were very hard workers when it came to building and, after the successful operation in Lars, the Dark Sovereign’s authority had grown significantly in their eye. And that increased their enthusiasm and building speed as well.

  They also started working harder because they just got paid for the first time. Strictly on schedule, the Storekeeper had paid everyone who took part in the big construction projects exactly what they were owed. What was more, and here I couldn’t believe my ears, the cheapskate demon agreed with Shrekson and paid bonuses to the hardest workers. That had me so intrigued I asked about it in greater detail. And Leon was eager to explain:

  “Your Storekeeper just isn’t himself today. Usually he’s incredibly cheap. If you really need something that costs pennies, you practically have to beat it out of him. But the demon just isn’t himself today. He was fairly easy to convince. I just said construction speed and worker enthusiasm was the best security our coffers could have. He constantly asked when the Sovereign would be back in Boundless Realm , too. I think he has something to tell you.”

  I suspected I knew exactly what the Storekeeper was so desperate to tell me. The demon was just not physically capable of dragging all the valuables up from the sea floor, but his natural greed didn’t allow him to just leave them so the Storekeeper had probably hidden all the most valuable loot. And now that the patch made it impossible to send indestructible creatures through portals, he was kicking himself because he couldn’t get back to his massive secret treasure. This story was partially confirmed by the fact that the players who went off after the sunken loot had taken down the underwater monsters, but didn’t find anything of interest on the sea floor. On the forums, there was a story going around that someone managed to get there before the treasure hunters. And I thought I knew exactly who that might be.